Future Consequences
by kab12
Summary: This starts when Bianca takes Chris back to the future in Chris Crossed. When Chris returned to the past, he wasn't alone. He brought his cousin back to save her from Wyatt. Will she keep his secrets? Or will she tell the Charmed Ones more than they ever needed to know about the future?
1. Prologue: Welcome Home

**A/N: This starts when Bianca takes Chris back to the future in Chris Crossed.**

**Prologue: Welcome Home**

"Welcome home, Chris."

The cold voice that was anything but welcoming was his brother's. Chris recognized his voice even though he couldn't see Wyatt at first. He could see the six demons that were part of his welcoming party. Wyatt moved into the light, comfortable amongst the demons.

"Hello, Wyatt," Chris said.

"Of all the people to betray me…"

Considering Wyatt had killed most of their family, Chris might have laughed, but there wasn't anything funny about this situation.

"I didn't go back to betray you, Wyatt. I went back to save you." And Chris truly believed he could save his brother.

Wyatt scoffed at that. "Save me? From what?"

"From whatever evil it was that turned you." Chris didn't believe that his brother was born evil. He couldn't.

"That's always been your problem, Chris. Stuck in the old good versus evil moral compass. I'm so past that." Wyatt was tired of having the same argument with his brother over and over again. "It's all about the power. It's as simple as that."

"And whoever has the most power wins, is that it?" Chris wondered how anyone raised by Piper with help from Phoebe and Paige could possibly think that. It was the opposite of what their mother and aunts had taught them.

"That's it. That's why I keep this museum intact – to remind everyone of the power from which I was born and that which I possess." Wyatt wasn't proud of all the good his family had done. He was only proud of the power the Charmed Ones had.

"Too bad the rest of the city isn't faring as well as your little shrine here." Chris couldn't help but think of where he and the rest of the resistance lived. It wasn't very homey. Of course, the manor wasn't either. Not anymore.

"You know if anyone else tried what you tried, I'd kill them on the spot. But you…I've forgiven Bianca. I can forgive you, too, if you promise never to cross me again." The sad thing was that Wyatt really thought he was being generous in not killing his brother.

"I think you know me better than that," Chris said.

"Oh yeah?" His brother needed an incentive. Well, Wyatt would give him one. He turned to face Bianca. "Bring her to me."

"Her? Her who?" Chris didn't know if he wanted to know. He probably didn't knowing Wyatt. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach.

She didn't know how long she'd been there, just lying on the ground in the dark basement, too sore and too weak to move from where the demons had put her when Wyatt and Bianca were done with her. She didn't know when the last time she'd eaten was. She wasn't hungry anymore. The hunger had faded slowly and her stomach just felt hollow.

She heard someone coming down the stairs and tensed, hating the fear that rose with every footstep. It was Bianca. The phoenix witch hauled her to her feet. She tried to shrug her off, but Bianca only tightened her grip on her arm. That would leave a bruise.

Bianca dragged her up to the attic.

"No!" Chris cried. Not her. Anybody but her.

"Don't worry. She's still alive." Wyatt spared a glance at the girl, whose face was deathly pale. Her shirt had dried blood and demon goo on it. "Barely."

She locked eyes with Chris, a helpless sorrow in her big brown eyes.

"Leave her out of this," Chris ordered.

"I can't do that. I know you, Chris. I knew you wouldn't give up. Not without an incentive." The girl was nothing more than that to Wyatt, but he knew she was important to Chris.

"She's not an incentive. She's family," Chris said with anger in his voice.

Wyatt was jealous of the girl who was closer to his brother than he was. And he didn't like feeling jealous. He wanted to kill her, but he couldn't. Not yet. He still needed her. "I can spare her – if you promise never to cross me again."

Chris couldn't promise that, but he also couldn't just stand there and watch Wyatt kill her. He lunged at Wyatt.

Before Chris could lay a hand on his brother, he was levitated in the air. It was no doubt Wyatt's doing.

"Have you lost your mind? I don't need you." Wyatt let Chris fall to the floor and created an energy ball. "I didn't want to kill you, but I will."

"You promised you wouldn't hurt him." Bianca seemed genuinely surprised that Wyatt would kill his own brother, though she shouldn't have been. Chris wouldn't be the first Halliwell that died at Wyatt's hands.

"You promised you'd turn him. Like I turned you, or at least I thought I had." Wyatt was beginning to question Bianca's loyalty, as well he should.

Bianca let go of the girl and ran over to Wyatt to stop him from throwing the energy ball at Chris – at least for now. "Whatever you're gonna do, do it fast. I can't hold him for long."

Chris pulled the floorboard up, hoping against hope that the sisters would come through for him. And they had.

The spell was waiting for him exactly where he thought it would be.

"Powers of witches rise. Come to me across the skies. Return my magic. Give me back all those taken from the attack." His powers returned to him in a blue light.

Wyatt kicked Bianca and her feet went out from under her. She landed on a broken table leg.

Chris waved his arm, throwing Wyatt across the room. Once Wyatt was out of the way, he ran over to Bianca.

The girl picked up the spell Chris had dropped and read it, her own powers returning to her in a blue light. Bianca had used her as the guinea pig for the spell that stole Chris's powers.

"Chris?" The girl looked at Chris, but he didn't even act like he heard her.

Wyatt stood up slowly and created an energy ball.

"Chris, watch out!"

Chris was still preoccupied with Bianca, to the exclusion of everyone else. The girl used her newly restored powers to teleport him to her before the energy ball hit him.

Wyatt turned around, another ball of energy in his hand already. Neither of them saw it coming. It narrowly missed Chris. He ducked out of the way with no time to spare. A split second later and it would have hit him squarely in the chest, killing him on impact.

Chris tried to pull the girl down, but it was too late. The energy ball grazed her right shoulder. The searing pain was immediate and unbearable. She gasped and fell to the floor.

Chris knew she would die if she wasn't healed – and soon. He grabbed the girl's hand and said the words that would take them to the past.


	2. Chapter One: Future Girl

**Chapter One: Future Girl**

"Are you okay?"

At least they had the decency to ask that before they started interrogating him.

"I'm fine." Chris scrambled up from where he'd landed on the attic floor. His traveling companion didn't make any move to get up. He glanced at her, fear and pain clear in his green eyes. Her eyes were closed. "She's not. Leo, heal her." There was a sense of urgency in his voice that wasn't there before, not even when the sisters were in grave danger.

The sisters and Leo followed Chris' gaze to the unconscious form lying on the attic floor. It wasn't Bianca. It was someone else from the future. Someone new.

Leo moved forward to heal her – whoever she was. He kneeled down and put his hand on the wound on her shoulder. And then he healed the older wounds, cuts, burns and bruises.

"Who is she?" Phoebe asked the question that was on all of their minds.

"PJ." Chris couldn't give his cousin's real name. Unlike his own name, her name would give her away as a long lost relative. Not only did it start with a P, but it was also their dead sister's name and an unusual name at that. Her nickname, at least, wasn't a family name.

"Uh-huh. And does PJ have a last name?" If this girl from the future was going to be around her and her sisters, Piper wanted to know who she was. They didn't need another Bianca on their hands.

"Johnson." Chris used his great-grandmother's maiden name. It had inspired Prue's middle name, after all. He would have used Perry and said that she was his sister, but thought they would notice that PJ didn't have white-lighter powers.

"And how do you know her?" Piper was curious as to what their connection was that the white-lighter who was so worried about future consequences would risk bringing another person from the future into the past.

Chris looked at PJ, an unusual warmth in his green eyes. "We're…close."

"How old is she?" Phoebe asked, her sympathetic gaze on the young girl who was on the verge of death.

"Seventeen," Chris said, wondering if she'd live to see eighteen. She'd already outlived her sisters and their other cousins. Halliwells had a short life expectancy in their future.

Paige looked from Chris to the girl, wondering just how close they were. "Seventeen! What is wrong with you? She's a kid. She's not even legal yet."

Chris made a face, every bit as disturbed by the thought of himself and PJ as Paige was. "No…she's my cousin."

As soon as he said it, they all saw it. Her hair was very close to the same color as his, maybe a shade lighter. They even had similar facial features.

"You told us you didn't have any family. Did you forget that you had a cousin out there?" He lied about his family. He lied about being a witch. It had been one lie after another with him. It made Piper wonder what else Chris was lying about.

"I'm sorry I lied to you, but-"

"No. No buts. It's about time you tell us the truth. Now," Piper said with an air of authority, tired of all the lies.

"I can't. Not because I don't want to, but because there's only so much I can tell you without the future being changed too much." Chris moved over to Leo and PJ, partially to check on his cousin but also to get away from the sisters and their endless questions. "Is she all right?"

"She will be," Leo assured him. "She just needs to rest. Give her body time to recover."

"And when she wakes up, is she going to try to take your powers or kill me?" Piper asked of Chris, the phoenix witch's unpleasant visit fresh in her mind.

"No. You don't have to worry about her. She's on our side," Chris said. If only they knew…

"That's assuming we're on the same side." Piper still wasn't convinced they could trust Chris. Still, she couldn't help but feel for a seventeen year old girl who had obviously been through hell. She sighed, her resolve weakening. "You can orb her downstairs to the couch."

"Here? No. She can stay with me." Chris was afraid of what PJ say about the future if the sisters talked to her before he did.

"You want an underage teenager to hang out in a nightclub with a fully stocked bar? What could possibly go wrong there?" Paige said sarcastically, remembering what she was like when she was that age.

"I think she should stay here." Piper looked at Chris expectantly. "Chris? Orb her to the couch." Chris looked like he was going to argue so Piper turned to Leo. "Leo?"

Leo orbed PJ to the conservatory and put her on the couch. He was surprised by how light the girl was. She barely weighed anything. They left PJ sleeping on the couch and migrated to the kitchen.

"Why did you bring her to the past?" Piper asked as she brewed a pot of coffee.

"To save her." It had been his only thought when Chris brought his cousin to the past with him. He hadn't thought about the consequences of PJ being there – not until it was too late. The cousin who could never keep a secret if her life depended on it might tell the sisters something that would change their future – and not for the better.

Leo looked at him with suspicion in his eyes. "There aren't white-lighters in the future?"

"No," Chris replied flatly. "Not any who could come to where we were without risking their lives."

Piper tilted her head, her eyebrows shooting up. "And where was that exactly?"

"Somewhere that doesn't exist yet." It was kind of true. The museum didn't exist yet – and wouldn't if Chris stopped Wyatt from turning evil.

"Her parents will be worried about her," Piper said, knowing she would be beside herself if a teenaged Wyatt disappeared.

"Her parents aren't around anymore," Chris said, not looking at the aunt that would be PJ's mother in a few years.

"Are you going to send her back to the future?" Phoebe asked.

"I can't. Not until I save Wyatt." Chris knew that his cousin wouldn't last ten minutes in the future. Wyatt would kill her as soon as she returned.

_Great_, so the sisters were stuck with another pesky time traveler - only this one was seventeen. They didn't know if they could trust her. Hell, they didn't even know if they could trust Chris. They couldn't exactly ship a teenager off to P3 like they had with Chris - however much they might want to.


	3. Chapter Two: Batman and Robin

**Chapter Two: Batman and Robin**

Prudence Johnna Halliwell woke up and she didn't know where she was – at least not at first. She looked around and placed her current location as the conservatory in the manor, an upgrade from the basement where she was being held until Chris's return…Chris. He must have made a deal with Wyatt to save her. She had to find him and make sure he was okay.

PJ didn't see any demon guards, phoenix witches, or, more importantly, _Lord_ Wyatt. She got up from the couch cautiously and walked to the front door, her steps quiet. She kept looking back over her shoulder to make sure no one was following her. She managed to make it to the door without incident. She turned the doorknob slowly and opened the door – only to run into…her mom?

"Oh!" Phoebe was a little taken aback when the seventeen year old time traveler that had been passed out on their couch ran into her. She recovered quickly, smiling brightly. "You're up. Are you okay?" She frowned, a concerned expression on her face. PJ didn't look okay. She looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"Phoebe? Is that you?" Piper called, hearing Phoebe's startled voice and hurrying into the hallway. Paige was right behind her.

PJ reluctantly tore her gaze from her mom and spun around to see her aunts in the flesh. Make that three ghosts.

"PJ…you're up." Piper said, unenthused about the houseguest.

Paige raised her eyebrows at the seventeen year old, suspicion in her eyes. "Going somewhere?"

PJ shook her head as if to clear it. The last thing she remembered was a high voltage energy ball hitting her. She woke up and her dead mom and dead aunts were walking around. There was only one logical conclusion. "Am I dead?"

"No!" Phoebe said, quick to reassure her.

"My, uh, husband healed you. He's a white-lighter," Piper said, assuming PJ knew what a white-lighter was since her cousin was one.

"Leo," PJ said without thinking. She didn't know whether she should be more surprised to see her dead mom and aunts or that Leo had healed the wound she got from his precious son. It was like an alternate universe.

Piper narrowed her brown eyes in speculation. "Do you know him?"

PJ laughed incredulously, a puzzled expression on her face. "You're serious?"

"Uh, yeah," Phoebe answered, moving next to her sisters.

"Wait. Do you…know who I am?" PJ looked at her mom uncertainly, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

"Do you know who we are?" Piper countered. She saw this as an opportunity to get some answers about the future – without Chris shutting them down every time they asked a question.

"Okay, yeah," PJ replied.

Phoebe's brown eyes widened with curiosity. "How?"

"Uh-uh. I answered your question. Now it's your turn." PJ thought her mom just _had_ answered her question. By asking _how_ PJ knew them, Phoebe had pretty much confirmed that she didn't recognize her own daughter.

What the hell had Wyatt done to her?

"Sure," Piper said dubiously. "You're Chris's cousin."

If they knew she was Chris's cousin, why were they acting like they didn't know who she was? Unless…

"And Chris is…?"

"A colossal pain in the ass," Paige muttered under her breath.

"First tell us how you know us," Phoebe said, a triumphant look on her face.

"I don't…" PJ didn't know what to say and she was _never_ at a loss for words. "Where's Chris?"

"Where he always is," Phoebe said, exchanging a look with her sisters.

"Vanquishing demons," Piper said.

"He didn't wait for me?" PJ made it sound like he'd gone out for a super fun night on the town instead of a demon vanquish.

"Great. Another one," Paige said sarcastically. The last thing they needed was another time traveler whose idea of fun was vanquishing demons.

"What?" PJ said innocently.

"Your cousin also lives to vanquish," Paige explained.

"It runs in the family." PJ smiled, almost as if it was an inside joke.

"Can I give you some advice?" It was a rhetorical question. Phoebe was going to give her advice whether she wanted to hear it or not. "You need to have a life outside of being a witch. Your cousin doesn't have a life. He lives and breathes demons. It's not too late for you. Save yourself."

Okay, was this another one of Wyatt's mind games? As convincing as he was, Wyatt couldn't persuade PJ and Chris to join the dark side so now he had the Charmed Ones – or at least three women who looked remarkably like the dead witches - doing his dirty work? It had to be a spell. PJ knew witches could change their appearance, even take on the appearance of others.

"Thanks," PJ said slowly, her voice laced with sarcasm. "Who are you?" Because they were definitely not the Charmed Ones she knew and loved.

"I thought you said you knew who we were," Paige said, crossing her arms.

"I thought I did," PJ said, matching Paige's accusatory tone. "Now who are you really?"

"I'm Phoebe and these are my sisters, uh, Piper and Paige," Phoebe introduced herself and her sisters, looking at the seventeen year old uncertainly.

"Uh-huh." PJ wasn't buying it. "Wyatt! I don't know what you did, but it's not gonna work! You might as well reverse it now! Come on, Wyatt!"

"Leave my son out of this," Piper ordered, any trace of goodwill gone from her voice. Even as she said this, baby Wyatt orbed to them.

"Your son. Well, at least you know who _he_…is," PJ scoffed. She did a double take at the baby boy with blonde curly hair and blue eyes. "Wait. Is that Wyatt?"

Piper picked up baby Wyatt and Paige moved in front of her sister and nephew protectively.

"You called for him," Paige said, her usual sarcasm darker than normal.

"No…I…." PJ groaned. This was enough to make her head hurt. "Where am I? I mean, when am I?"

"2004," Paige replied, her lips curving into a smirk.

"Welcome back," Phoebe said. "Actually, I guess you weren't born yet."

"No," PJ said, her voice weak. So_ that_ was why her mom and her aunts didn't recognize her. But if they knew who Chris was and they knew she was his cousin… "Is Chris here? I mean, obviously not _here_. Here in this time here?"

"I thought we already established that he's vanquishing demons," Piper said coolly.

PJ really shouldn't have mentioned Wyatt, especially not the way she mentioned him. It was a surefire way to get on Piper's bad side.

"Chris!" PJ called.

Chris orbed in almost immediately. He hadn't wanted to leave PJ with the sisters. He just didn't have much of a choice. He had a lead on a demon that might be after Wyatt and a small window of time to vanquish it.

"Chris!" PJ hugged her cousin tightly, obvious relief flooding her face.

Chris smiled, probably his first real smile since he'd been in the past. "You miss me, cuz?"

"Is that a smile?" Paige whispered to her sisters.

"So he _does_ have more than one expression. You know, the serious one," Phoebe whispered back.

The cousins were completely oblivious to the side conversation the sisters were having. They were in their own little world.

PJ held her thumb and index finger about an inch apart. "A little bit," she replied to his question, a teasing smile on her face.

"I missed you, too," Chris said with his usual sarcasm.

PJ laughed and looked at her cousin, tears in her eyes. "I thought-"

She thought he was dead. She thought _they_ were both dead.

"I know." Chris was the only person who _could_ know.

"I don't understand." PJ glanced at her mom. "They-"

"They need to know as little as possible about the future," Chris cut in hurriedly – _before_ she could say anything else.

PJ's puzzled expression matched the overwhelmed feeling of confusion Phoebe was getting from her. Fortunately for PJ, her confusion was currently overpowering her hatred for Wyatt. If Phoebe got the sense that PJ felt even a shred of hatred for her nephew, it would all be over.

"So they don't know that you're-"

"They _can't_," Chris cut her off, his expression deadly serious.

"You're _what_?" Piper demanded. She sounded completely exasperated.

"You know everything you need to know about me," Chris said, making it clear that he wasn't going to tell her anything else.

Paige looked at their white-lighter, who they didn't know was half-witch until recently, skeptically. "Do we?"

"Do you know us in the future?" Piper asked, her intense gaze on Chris.

"It sure seems like your cousin does," Phoebe muttered under her breath.

Chris glared at PJ, a facial expression the sisters and his cousin were very familiar with. "PJ. What'd you do?"

"Why do you automatically assume I did something?" PJ said innocently.

"Uh, because I know you," Chris said.

"Okay. Fine. I told them I knew them. How was I supposed to know it was a big secret?" PJ said defensively. Really, what was she supposed to do? "Maybe if you hadn't left me here in _2004_ all by myself…"

"What? Would you prefer I left you in the future?" They both knew he didn't mean it. Chris would never have left her there to die.

"Okay. That's it. Time out," Piper said, refereeing. "We know you know us in the future. Tell us how you know us."

Chris sighed. "I can't, not without the future changing too much."

"Um, isn't that your whole point? To come and change the future?" Paige reminded him.

"Yeah, but it was supposed to be more like a surgical strike," Chris said.

"What about Bianca?" Phoebe asked suddenly, worried the phoenix witch would come back.

"Bianca won't be a threat to anyone anymore." Even with the potion Chris took to block her power, Phoebe could feel his sadness over the love lost.

"I'm sorry," Phoebe said.

"I'm not," PJ muttered under her breath.

Chris heard her. He didn't want to believe his fiancé would hurt his cousin, but... "What happened? What were you doing there? What did she do to you?"

"Which question do you want me to answer first?" PJ said.

"PJ," Chris said, a warning tone to his voice.

"She told me she needed my help to save you. I went with her – _willingly_. My mistake." PJ couldn't believe she'd been so stupid. "She used me as the guinea pig for the spell she used on you, you know, to steal your powers and then she personally delivered me to him."

"Him who?" Paige asked, trying to keep up with the story.

They ignored her.

They were, of course, talking about the nephew Paige – and everyone else - doted on.

Chris grimaced. PJ went with Bianca to save him. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's not your fault." PJ put a comforting hand on his arm.

"What did he do to you?" Chris asked slowly.

"Nothing," PJ lied, not wanting Chris to feel any worse than he already did.

Chris stared at her in disbelief. "Did whatever he did affect your memory? I saw you, remember? He obviously did _something_."

"Yeah, well, I'm fine now." PJ smiled nervously. She knew her cousin had a temper. She was half expecting him to blow something up.

"You will be." Chris would make sure of that. "I'll save him. I'll stop him."

"If you're gonna save the world, you should have a costume." PJ could always be counted on to lighten the mood.

Chris's lips twitched. "What, like Superman?"

"Or Batman. I don't discriminate. Any hero will do as long as they have a costume," PJ said.

"If I'm Batman, what does that make you? Robin?" Chris mused.

"Um, witches don't wear costumes," Paige decided it was her duty to inform them.

"How do you know? Maybe black hats and broomsticks make a comeback in the future," PJ said.

"Okay, _children_, I know it will be difficult, but can you please try to act your age instead of your shoe size?" Piper said, a small smile on her face.

"I don't know. I kind of like this side of Chris," Phoebe mused.

Chris glared at her, mock- insulted.

"He _is_ more fun," Paige agreed.

"Yeah, well, as much _fun_ as this has been, I'm leaving now." The good-natured teasing reminded Chris too much of what it was like before his mom and his aunts died.

That was just what PJ did. She had a way of making everyone feel comfortable. Chris didn't know if it was her sweet and innocent baby-face and big doe eyes or her warm and bubbly personality, but everyone liked her. Well, everyone except Wyatt.

But Chris didn't _want_ to bond with his mom and aunts. He didn't need his cousin for that. He knew enough about them that he could have if he'd wanted to. Instead, he'd kept his distance. He was just their white-lighter. He wasn't their friend, or their nephew, or Piper's son. It would hurt too much to have them back however briefly, only to go back to a future where they were all dead.


	4. Chapter Three: The Anti-Truth Spell

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed, and/or favorited this story. I'm so glad that you seem to like the plot so far. This chapter isn't my favorite, but it's necessary to set up a twist I have planned for a later chapter.**

**Chapter Three: The Anti-Truth Spell**

"Wait, what do you mean _you're_ leaving?" PJ demanded of Chris. "I'm going with you."

"No, you're not," Piper said before Chris could get a word in. "Chris is staying in the back room of my club. My twenty-one and over club."

PJ was surprised that her mom and aunts hadn't insisted that Chris stay with them, but then she remembered they didn't know he was a Halliwell.

"Where am I staying?" PJ was almost afraid to ask.

"The couch." Piper was even less thrilled about the houseguest now than she was before PJ had woken up and called for Wyatt, but she didn't know what else to do with the seventeen year old time traveler.

"What? No. Chris, you can't leave me here." PJ looked at Chris pleadingly.

It wasn't that PJ didn't want to stay with her mom and her aunts. She did. Her Aunt Piper and mom had died within a month of each other. PJ hadn't even been ten at the time. Just a kid. She'd missed having her mom at her graduation from middle school and when she was picking a dress for prom. Not a day went by that she didn't miss her mom. She wanted to make up for lost time.

PJ just didn't trust herself not to say something she wasn't supposed to, something that the sisters couldn't know without screwing up the future too much. And while there were a lot of things that she would love to change about the future, there were a few things PJ would never change – like the birth of her sisters or cousins.

Chris looked at his cousin helplessly. "I'm sorry." He took a vial of the empath-blocking potion out of his pocket and handed it to PJ. "Here. You'll need this."

PJ drank from the vial without even asking what was in it. She trusted Chris with her life.

"I know what that is! That's the empath-blocking potion," Phoebe said, recognizing the color of the potion.

"What are you hiding now?" Piper eyed their white-lighter warily.

Oh, nothing much. Just that PJ loved Phoebe the way a child loved their mother and hated Wyatt with passion.

"Nothing. Look, you saw what happened when you and Paige weren't taking the potion. Do you really want a repeat of that?" Chris said.

"No," Paige answered for Piper. "It was bad enough when Phoebe was feeling everything we were feeling. We don't need her feeling what a hormonal teenager is feeling."

"Hey!" PJ said in her own defense.

"See? I'm just being helpful," Chris said, a smug look on his face.

For someone who hadn't even wanted to stay there, the seventeen year old time traveler was surprisingly comfortable in the manor.

PJ walked straight past her mom and aunts and went right into the kitchen. Without waiting for them to ask if she wanted anything, PJ opened the kitchen cabinet, took a plate out, and started making herself a turkey sandwich.

She was starving.

Wyatt hadn't fed her once in the entire time he'd had her locked in the basement of the manor.

"How did you know where the plates are?" Piper broke the silence, surprised by how at home the teenager was in _her_ kitchen.

PJ froze and turned around slowly. She hadn't even been there for five minutes and she'd already screwed up. "Uh, lucky guess?"

"Uh-uh. You've been here before." Phoebe didn't know how she knew. She just knew.

PJ shrugged, the simple gesture so like Phoebe that it was familiar to Piper, even if she didn't know why it looked familiar.

"You look familiar." Piper studied the seventeen year old, unable to place her.

"How could I? I haven't even been born yet," PJ said dismissively.

"Do we know your family?" Piper asked.

PJ suppressed a grin and turned away from the sisters to pour herself a glass of water. "Yeah."

They knew her family. They _were_ her family.

The sisters watched as the teenager took a glass out of the kitchen cabinet. She didn't have to open all the cabinets looking for glasses. The glasses were in the very first cabinet she opened. She was using one of the cheap glasses they used everyday, not the good glasses that had to be washed by hand. She turned the faucet in the sink on and waited a minute for the water to get cold before filling the glass.

PJ knew them. She'd admitted as much. However she knew them, she had to know them really well.

PJ knew the manor - or at least the kitchen.

"Maybe she's friends with one of our kids," Phoebe mused.

PJ glanced at her mom, not hiding her amusement well, as she carried her plate and glass to the table and sat down.

Piper shot Phoebe a look. "You don't _have_ kids and I don't think she's friends with Wyatt."

"Do we have kids in the future?" Phoebe questioned the time traveler eagerly.

PJ just smiled and shook her head. "I can't tell you that."

"Then you probably won't tell us if we have husbands in the future either, huh?" Phoebe knew the answer, but she had to try.

"Sorry," PJ said, the corner of her mouth curving up into a half-smile.

Phoebe shrugged. "Oh, well. It was worth a shot."

"Uh, PJ, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?" Piper wanted to know more about the seventeen year old if she was going to be staying there…like what PJ's problem with Wyatt was.

PJ didn't think it would hurt anything if she didn't mention her family. "I was born here in San Francisco."

"Did you go to school with our kids in the future?" Phoebe asked.

"Your unborn children?" PJ said, her lips curving into a smirk.

"You're not born yet either," Phoebe pointed out.

"School." Piper pointed at PJ. "You're seventeen. You should be in school."

"Yeah, no," PJ said.

"When I skipped school, I usually just went to the mall. Not the past," Paige said.

"That's not where Phoebe went," Piper said in a light, teasing tone reserved for her sisters. She thought she might be the only one in her family who never ditched. Prue, Phoebe and Paige had all been too busy rebelling to actually go to class.

Phoebe mock-glared at Piper, wishing Piper had left her own less than perfect attendance record out of it.

PJ turned to look at Phoebe, eager to learn something new about her mom. "Where'd you go?"

But Piper was the one who answered for Phoebe. "Wherever Todd Marks was."

"Thank you," Phoebe said sarcastically.

"Todd Marks. Was he your first love?" Paige asked.

"More like first lust," Piper corrected.

That was more than PJ had ever wanted to know about her mother.

"Okay. You didn't have your powers when you were in high school so it would've been kind of hard for you to time travel," PJ said.

"High school. What year are you?" Phoebe asked the teenager. She didn't want her sisters to pick up where they left off. She thought they'd be more interested in the time traveler than her if she could just keep PJ talking.

PJ hesitated, knowing her mom and aunts wouldn't approve of her choices – even if she didn't really _have_ a choice. "I would be a junior."

"Would be." Piper tilted her head to look at PJ. "What do you mean would be?"

"Well, I'm kind of living underground in the future. You know, off the radar. There's this evil after me." PJ decided not to mention that the evil was Piper's firstborn. She had a feeling that if she did, the concerned expression on her mom's face would turn into a look of disbelief. "It's okay. I mean, who needs algebra in the real world?"

"Wait. Is the evil after you in the future the same evil that's after Wyatt now?" Piper asked.

"No," PJ said flatly, irritation flashing across her face. Wyatt _was_ the evil after her. And she didn't even know if there was an evil after Wyatt. She picked up her plate, done with _that_ conversation. "I'm just gonna go upstairs and check the book."

"The Book of Shadows? _Our_ Book of Shadows?" Piper sounded surprised. It was _their_ book, their family heritage with knowledge that was passed down from generation to generation.

PJ frowned, not used to being treated like a stranger by her mom and aunts. "That's okay, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Phoebe said uncertainly.

"No," Piper said at the same exact time.

Phoebe and Piper exchanged a look.

"Oh-kay," PJ said slowly. She walked past them and headed up to the attic. Her mom said yes and that was good enough for her.

Piper stared at Phoebe incredulously. "Why would you say yes?"

"Well, she's Chris's cousin..."

"Oh, well, that makes me feel a lot better about it," Paige said sarcastically, her trust for their white-lighter at an all time low.

"What was I supposed to do?" Phoebe said defensively.

"Uh, say no?" Paige suggested.

"It's a little late for that," Piper muttered. "Someone needs to go up there and watch her."

PJ glanced at Paige, not particularly surprised that they hadn't left her alone with the Book of Shadows. "So you drew the short straw?"

"What?" Paige said.

"Piper didn't want to leave me alone with the Book of Shadows. Someone had to supervise," PJ said knowingly.

"Well, yeah," Paige admitted.

"You do know the book protects itself from evil?" PJ returned her gaze to the book.

"You know an awful lot about the book." Paige looked over the seventeen year old's shoulder. "The truth spell?"

"Not the way I'm casting it," PJ muttered as she re-wrote the spell on a piece of paper, crossing superfluous words out and adding words as needed.

"Wait a minute, you're just supposed to be reading, not casting spells and definitely not changing spells." Paige grabbed the Book of Shadows.

"I'm just worried I'm going to tell you guys something that will change the future. There isn't a lot of good in the future, but there is some good, you know," PJ said.

Paige raised her eyebrows. "And you think the truth spell is the magical solution to your problem?"

"No, but I think an anti-truth spell is," PJ said.

"So in other words you're casting a lying spell. No. No, no, no!" Paige told her in no uncertain terms. "A lying spell. God, you and Chris really _are_ related."

"Not lying. Just- not telling. Look, I don't want to lie to you. There are just some things I can't tell you," PJ said, desperation creeping into the teenager's voice.

Paige didn't know what to do. She helped kids. She used to anyway. PJ was just a kid.

The teenager was in the past where she hadn't even been born yet. She didn't know anyone. Well, she knew the sisters, but they didn't know her. They had separated her from the only person in the past who _did_ know her.

"Let me see the spell," Paige demanded, holding out her hand for the piece of paper. She read it and gave it back to the time traveler against her better judgment. "Okay, fine."

PJ took a deep breath and chanted.

"_For those who want the_

_Truth unrevealed_

_Secrets sealed_

_From now until_

_In the future again_

_After which the spell will end_

_Those who now are in this house_

_Will hear nothing of the future _

_From this mouth."_


	5. Chapter Four: Nightmare

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews. Knowing what you like and don't like helps me edit accordingly.**

**You see something that happened to PJ in the past and shaped who she is today and the decisions she's making today in this chapter. I planned on using this later on in the story, but, based on your feedback, decided to put it in this chapter instead.**

**I'm trying to keep the characters in character. I'm using what little we know about PJ from the show combined with specific personality traits that Halliwells possess to write PJ. None of the characters are perfect, least of all PJ. She **_**is**_** Phoebe's daughter, after all, and we all know what Phoebe was like as a teenager. **

**Chapter Four: Nightmare**

Antosis was waiting for them right where Wyatt said he would be - and he wasn't alone. He was with imps – and lots of them.

"Looking for me, are you?" Antosis was talking to the sisters, but he was looking at Wyatt.

"You weren't very hard to find," PJ told him.

"I'd like to introduce you to my friends." Antosis gestured toward the imps.

That must have been a signal. The imps flew directly at the three sisters. For some reason, they left Wyatt alone.

"PJ!" Peyton said.

PJ glanced at her youngest sister and telekinetically threw an imp that was about to land on Peyton's arm back. The imp hit the wall and landed on the ground.

Parker swatted another imp like a fly and darted behind PJ. That same imp came back. This time it managed to land on its target – PJ's left arm. It's razor-sharp claws dug into her arm, drawing blood. She moved her arm, trying to get it off of her. She used her right hand to reach over and brush it off of her.

Peyton blew the imps up one at a time, a disgusted look on her face.

The remaining imps took off after they saw what happened to their friends.

"I'm impressed," Antosis said.

"You should be scared." PJ looked at her sisters and nodded, her right hand grabbing her youngest sister's small hand and her left hand closing around Parker's hand.

Together they started chanting the spell to vanquish Antosis.

"_Hear us now_

_The witches' call_

_He who makes_

_Samaritans fall_

_We speak as one_

_The sisters three-"_

Antosis widened his eyes, realizing what the girls were trying to do. Too bad he didn't think it would work. "A power of three spell? No. The Charmed Ones are dead."

"_And banish you to eternity."_

Antosis screamed. Apparently the spell was working.

"No! You didn't say anything about your cousins being Charmed." The accusatory tone was directed at Wyatt.

There was an explosion and there was nothing left where Antosis had been standing.

PJ frowned, not sure why her cousin would tell a demon _anything_. She couldn't ask Antosis because he was gone.

"I think something's wrong," Parker said quietly to PJ, looking up at her older sister, a frown on her face.

PJ had to agree. She didn't have to be an empath like Parker to know that something was very wrong.

PJ had been searching high and low for the demon that killed their aunt and Wyatt found him in record time. She didn't question how her cousin had found the demon when no one else could find him. He was her cousin. She trusted him. But maybe she shouldn't have.

Antosis was waiting for them, expecting them.

It was a trap.

Wyatt just stood back and watched the whole thing. PJ knew he couldn't vanquish Antosis. Only the power of three could do that. But he could have helped with the imps and he didn't. He didn't even _try_ to help them.

PJ had a feeling something bad was about to happen, a gut instinct she shouldn't have ignored.

"Nothing's wrong, Parker," Wyatt said. "There is no right and wrong. No good versus evil. Only power. You have the power of three. How does it feel?"

Peyton looked at Wyatt like he wasn't making any sense. "There is good versus evil."

"Yeah," Parker agreed.

Wyatt looked at PJ. "What do you think, PJ? Is there good versus evil?"

PJ nodded slowly.

"Really? Is your boyfriend evil then?" Wyatt said smugly.

"Aiden's not evil," PJ said, acutely aware that her younger sisters were staring at her. They knew she had boyfriend, but they didn't know he was a warlock. She didn't _want_ them to know.

Wyatt smiled, a triumphant look on his face. "Because there is no good versus evil. Aiden's not evil. He's simply a powerful warlock. Aunt Paige could never see past the father from which he was born. She would never have let you be together."

"I would rather have Aunt Paige back than be with Aiden," PJ said firmly without any hesitation.

"She won't come back. She's dead. Antosis killed her." There was no emotion in Wyatt's voice. He might have been talking about the weather instead of their dead aunt.

"Did he?" PJ asked, questioning the information that had come from Wyatt. At the moment she didn't know how reliable a source her cousin was. Maybe they had just vanquished the wrong demon.

"You think I killed her?" Wyatt put his hand on his chest, feigning hurt.

"Yes," Parker said quietly, hurt clear in her brown eyes.

Wyatt regarded the empath coolly. "I always hated the power of empathy."

Later, when this was all over, PJ would question whether he hated the power enough to kill her mom.

PJ stepped in front of Parker, suddenly afraid of what Wyatt might do to her.

She had a good reason to be afraid.

Wyatt's blue eyes narrowed, assessing the protective stance PJ took in front of Parker. He smiled what PJ was sure he thought was a reassuring smile. "I don't want to hurt you."

"What do you want?" PJ demanded.

"What do I want? That's simple. I want to be free," Wyatt said.

"You _are_ free," PJ said.

"Am I?" Wyatt said skeptically. "I'm weighed down by the repressive morality. I've never understood why we can't use our power anywhere we want, anytime we want. We shouldn't have to hide our power when we have the power to take the world."

Okay, Wyatt had officially gone off the deep end.

"There's no we," PJ told him, not wanting to be included in this – whatever this was. She still wasn't sure she understood _what_ Wyatt wanted.

"There could be. You are the oldest and most powerful sister of the Charmed Ones. You like the power, don't you?" Wyatt said knowingly. "And I…I'm twice-blessed. We can change the world together."

"I'm flattered, but you'll have to find someone else to change the world with you," PJ said, her voice laced with sarcasm.

PJ held her sisters' hands tightly and beamed – or she tried to anyway. Nothing happened.

"Uh-uh, no beaming." Wyatt sounded almost amused. "I didn't want to have to kill you, but I can't risk the power of three stopping me."

Aiden stepped out from the shadows where he'd been watching them, unbeknownst to PJ.

Aiden was tall with dark brown hair and brown eyes. His body was hard toned muscle. He had recently gone from a virtual stranger to PJ's first love. The only drawback was that he was a warlock.

"Aiden?" PJ wasn't just surprised to see him there. She was confused at to what exactly he was doing there.

"You never said anything about killing her," Aiden said to Wyatt, barely sparing PJ a glance.

"I wouldn't have to do this if you'd turned her," Wyatt said.

"I still can," Aiden said, desperation creeping into his voice.

Wyatt looked at PJ. "Can he?"

"No," PJ said heatedly.

"PJ," Aiden said, his tone pleading.

"It should've been easy. Mom always said she was a Little Phoebe and Aunt Phoebe always was the weakest of the Charmed Ones." Wyatt didn't even bother to hide his contempt.

"Mom wasn't weak." Peyton glared at Wyatt. Her glare was surprisingly intimidating for a ten year old.

"Yes, she was. And so are you. I wouldn't be worried about you at all if you didn't have the power of three. Maybe I'll just kill one of you…"

Wyatt created an energy ball.

PJ stared at her cousin in disbelief. She didn't even know he could create energy balls.

This wasn't the cousin she'd grown up with. She didn't even know who he was anymore. How could he have changed so much since the death of Aunt Paige?

"Wait!" PJ said desperately. She had to say something, anything. "I'll help you, uh, change the world. Just leave my sisters alone."

Wyatt considered that for a minute and shook his head. "I can't risk the power of three stopping me. You could double cross me. I'll let you and one of your sisters live if you turn. I'll even let you choose which sister."

"I can't," PJ said, her voice cracking. How could she choose between her two younger sisters? She was the oldest. It was her job to protect them – _both_ of them.

Unconcerned, Wyatt shrugged. "Fine. I'll choose." Wyatt looked at Parker, a wicked smile on his face.

She didn't know what else to do so PJ started chanting, a death grip on her sisters' hands. She didn't even know if the power of three spell would work, but she had to do _something_.

"_The power of three_

_Will set us free_

_The power of three_

_Will set us free._"

Parker glanced at PJ and opened her mouth to join in. But before she could say anything, Wyatt hurled the energy ball at her.

PJ froze, unable to move, her brown eyes wide with horror, as the high voltage energy ball hit Parker. Parker fell to the ground beside her.

"No!" PJ cried, dropping to her knees next to her fallen sister. Parker's brown eyes were open and her mouth was still open. She was dead.

Parker was only fourteen. She hadn't done anything to deserve this. She was the good sister.

"No." PJ was sobbing.

"PJ? PJ!" A concerned voice said.

PJ's eyes flew open and she shot up on the couch in the living room. She looked around and saw her mom standing over her, a concerned expression on her face.

"PJ?" Phoebe said, her voice tentative. The empath-blocking potion wasn't strong enough to block the fear, abject horror, pain, and grief coming from the teenager in rolling waves.

PJ opened her mouth to form the word Mom, but nothing came out. She had no voice, a side affect of the anti-truth spell. She literally couldn't reveal the truth about who she was to Phoebe.

Fortunately for her, she could talk. She just couldn't say anything that was potentially future altering. Every time she tried to, she lost her voice and Paige gave her an I-told-you-so look. It was kind of annoying.

"Phoebe?" It was weird for the seventeen year old to call her mom Phoebe. She would've slipped up several times if it weren't for the spell.

Her mom and Aunt Paige weren't actually living in the manor, but Phoebe had stayed there because they weren't comfortable leaving Piper there alone with the time traveler.

"Yeah. Bad dream?" Phoebe said.

"Yeah." PJ glanced up at her mom. "Did I wake you up?"

Phoebe shook her head. "No. I was up talking to Jason. Time difference." She sat down on the couch and PJ drew her knees to her chest, giving Phoebe more room. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

She _did_ want to talk about it, but PJ didn't know if she _could_ talk about it. She relived the night her sisters died in her dream. Would Phoebe still want to have kids if she knew two of her kids wouldn't live to see their sixteenth birthdays? Would Phoebe want PJ if she knew her oldest daughter would lead them straight into a death trap? That the only reason PJ was still alive was because her warlock ex-boyfriend blinked her away?

But Phoebe didn't know that PJ's sisters were her daughters.

The time traveler had discovered through trial and error at dinner that she could give the sisters limited information about the future. The spell wouldn't allow her to address them as Mom or Aunt, but telling them that her favorite subject in school had been English, she didn't play any sports because she was a total klutz, and she didn't have a boyfriend in the future was allowed.

Somehow the magic knew what information in the hands of the Charmed Ones would change the future and what information was harmless. The problem was that the magic was smarter than PJ.

All PJ knew was that her mom and aunts had all warned her, her sisters and her cousins about the risks of time travel. They'd turned Chris into a future consequences Nazi. It was kind of ironic that the past versions of the sisters weren't worried about consequences.

The time traveler took a deep breath. "It was about the night my sisters died." She was kind of surprised the spell had let her say that much.

"Oh, God, sweetie, I'm sorry," Phoebe said, her eyes filled with sympathy.

"It's okay," the teenager mumbled.

"No, it's not okay," Phoebe said. "We lost our sister, too, you know."

"Prue," PJ said quietly, knowing the story of the dead aunt she was named after well.

"Yeah. Uh, a demon killed her." Phoebe looked at PJ, curiosity in her brown eyes. "Did a demon kill your sisters?"

No, Phoebe's darling nephew did.

"The same evil that's after me in the future," PJ muttered.

"What demon?" Phoebe asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," PJ said.

Phoebe had seen a lot of crazy things in her demon fighting days. She didn't think there was anything the time traveler would tell her that she wouldn't believe. "Try me."

PJ looked at her mom, uncertainty clouding her eyes. "What if it's not a demon?" The teenager paused, waiting for a look of disbelief on her mom's face. It didn't come. "What if it's the last person you would ever expect to be evil?"

Phoebe nodded, considering the possibility. "There's evil inside everyone."

"Not my sisters. P-" PJ lost her voice when she tried to say Parker's name thanks to the anti-truth spell. "Uh, my younger sister was so good. Better than me." Her voice was shaking.

"You can't blame yourself," Phoebe said, sensing the overwhelming guilt swallowing the time traveler. They really needed a stronger empath-blocking potion for her.

"But I do." And if her mom knew the whole story, she would blame her, too.

"I know it's hard, but you gotta try to move forward," Phoebe said.

"How can I move forward when I'm stuck in the past?" The time traveler's light tone didn't match the pain that was still clearly reflected in her eyes.

"Do you wanna go back to the future?" It was something that Phoebe hadn't considered. Chris told them that his cousin needed to stay in the past and they just accepted it at face value.

"No." PJ wanted more time with her mom and her aunts. She didn't have anyone in the future. "No," she said again, her voice breaking. She was feeling very sorry for herself.

"Okay. Do you wanna go back to bed?" The seventeen year old looked completely exhausted.

"No." PJ was glad Phoebe woke her up when she did. She had no desire to relive Peyton's death.

"Yeah. Me either," Phoebe said. "Do you wanna watch a movie?"

"Uh, yeah. Kill It Before It Dies?" PJ said.

"That's my favorite movie." Phoebe looked at the time traveler, shocked by how much the teenager seemed to know about them.

PJ smiled. "I know."

They weren't even halfway through the movie when the teenager fell asleep. Phoebe glanced over at her at one point and her eyes were closed, her mouth open slightly, her breathing even. Phoebe turned the TV off, covered the teenager with the blanket that had been kicked off when she was having a nightmare, and went to bed with one goal in mind. The advice columnist and Charmed One wanted to help the girl from the future deal with the death of her sisters.


	6. Chapter Five: The Demon With No Name

**A/N: This is just a quick filler chapter that takes place during Witchstock. I used more from the show than I normally will in this chapter. I didn't want to just jump into the drama without showing a little bit about how the sisters, Chris, and PJ are working together. There will be a lot of drama after the next chapter. Any suggestions or questions are welcome. As always, thank you for the reviews. I'm going to respond to some of them at the end.**

**Chapter Five: The Demon With No Name **

Much to PJ's disappointment, Phoebe only stayed in the manor for one night, after which the sisters had apparently decided that the seventeen year old time traveler wasn't going to kill Piper or Wyatt in their sleep. They were right about Piper. PJ was strongly considering killing Wyatt however.

The baby was smart enough to raise his shield any time PJ was in the same room as him, which wasn't often. She always made a hasty excuse to leave whenever her cousin was in any of the common areas.

That meant the teenager spent a lot of time alone. That was fine by her. She didn't really want to spend time with Piper. Her aunt hadn't been the most welcoming person in the world.

PJ would have loved to spend time with her mom or Paige, but they were both busy with their respective boyfriends. The only time she got to see them was when the sisters were vanquishing demons.

Needless to say, the seventeen year old was very happy when Chris orbed to Japan to bring Phoebe back for a vanquish. Paige was supposed to be there, too, but she wasn't there yet.

"She's supposed to be here by now," Chris said, his voice tinged with annoyance.

"So she's a little late," Piper said, not bothered by Paige's conspicuous absence.

"No, she's a lot late," Chris corrected impatiently. "Paige used to be the first one to a vanquish. What's wrong with her?"

"She's in love. That's hardly wrong," Piper said, not bothering to hide her exasperation with their white-lighter.

"It is when it interferes with her responsibilities as a Charmed One," Chris said argumentatively.

"We can't let our responsibilities stop us from living our lives," Phoebe said.

"I can help. I mean, I have the same power as Paige…" PJ trailed off. Her mom and aunt were looking at her like she was talking crazy. "Uh, telekinesis?"

It was the first time she had offered to help them with demons, and they weren't ready to accept help from a kid – even if this particular kid had gone to the underworld with Chris before.

Piper stared at the teenager. "You're seventeen."

"And I've been using my powers since I was three months old, which is longer than any of you had your powers when you started fighting evil," PJ said, trying not to roll her eyes.

"She has a point," Phoebe admitted, looking at her sister cautiously, knowing she was supposed to be on Piper's side.

"At her age she should be battling acne, not evil," Piper said, very reluctant to take the teen witch vanquishing.

"Am I breaking out?" PJ asked self-consciously, already walking over to stand in front of the mirror.

"She'll be fine, Piper." Chris looked at the seventeen year old, who was now examining herself in the mirror, looking for any blemishes on her skin with a critical eye. He shook his head. Girls! "PJ, you're not breaking out. And who are you trying to impress anyway? The demon?"

"I don't know, maybe. Is the demon hot?" PJ retorted. She tried not to smile, but the look of complete exasperation on her cousin's face was funny. "Just kidding."

"PJ, focus please," Chris said, somewhat less than amused with his younger cousin.

"I thought it was funny," Phoebe said to PJ.

"Can we get the show on the road here?" Chris said impatiently. He just didn't think it should not be this difficult for three witches to vanquish a demon.

"Sure," Phoebe said.

Chris orbed them all to a warehouse.

"Okay, what do you want us to do?" Phoebe asked.

"You're the bait. All you've gotta do is levitate into the air and when this demon senses your magic, it's gonna come fast and hard," Chris explained.

Phoebe levitated and, just as Chris had said, the demon came fast and hard, a big green blob headed straight for her. Gross. The demon was definitely not hot. PJ flicked her wrist, telekinetically changing the demon's course so he crashed into a wall instead of her mother. Without further ado, Piper blew the demon up. There was slime everywhere.

It would have been a successful vanquish had the demon not come back to life in the manor, the green slime that was all over the witches' clothes crawling off their dirty clothes to reform into a big blob.

"I can hear it. I think it's in the wall," Chris said. As if on cue, the wall cracked.

"Yep, it's in the wall," Leo said.

"Okay, we're gonna need Paige. It took the power of three to vanquish this thing in the future," Chris said.

Piper looked at their white-lighter, not understanding why he had them fight the demon without Paige if he knew it would take the power of three. "What? If you knew that, why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"

Chris glanced at his cousin. He thought maybe her power would be enough since she and her younger sisters had reconstituted the power of three after Phoebe and Paige died. Technically she _was_ a Charmed One. But, of course, he couldn't tell the Charmed Ones of this time that.

"Because I could barely get two of you together, let alone three," he said instead. "Besides, this thing's not that big right now and I thought two could handle it."

He always felt like he had to defend himself to the sisters. His cousin didn't have to do that, but, then again, she wasn't their white-lighter. She wasn't the one sending them on one vanquish after another. Chris was.

Okay, he was a little bitter.

Just a little.

Having his cousin there helped a little bit. Chris didn't even bother sending the sisters after the demons on his list anymore unless the Book of Shadows specifically said it would take the power of three to vanquish that particular demon. It was just easier to do it himself or with the help of his cousin. Unlike his mom and aunts, PJ didn't question everything he did. She didn't fight him every step of the way. She actually trusted him, a concept that was foreign to the sisters.

"Leo, you take point. Chris here is much too green to guide my girls." Great. Now even Grams was questioning him.

"What? You know what, you can just stop that right-"

"Uh-uh, quiet," Grams cut him off.

It didn't take them long to figure out that the red go-go boots Paige had found in the attic and tried on had transported her to the sixties thanks to a spell Grams had cast on them. Piper and Phoebe would have to go back to get her so they could vanquish the demon – for real this time.

"So we get to go back there? We get to meet our grandfather?" Phoebe said, excitement in her voice.

"Don't make too much out of it because whatever you do, you can't change the past or tell anyone you're from the future," Grams warned her granddaughter.

"Well, why do they get to?" Phoebe looked at the two time travelers.

"Because we know what we're doing." Chris glanced at his cousin. "Well, I do anyway."

"Hey, I've been good. I haven't told them anything future-altering," PJ said defensively.

"Yeah, because you cast a spell," Phoebe said.

Chris looked alarmed. This was clearly the first he'd heard of his cousin's bright idea. "What? What spell?"

"An anti-truth spell." PJ sounded very proud of herself.

"Seriously?" Chris looked at Piper, surprised she hadn't stopped PJ from casting a spell, especially now that he knew what the spell was.

Piper rolled her eyes. "She's _your_ cousin," she said to Chris.

"That's enough," Grams said, taking charge. "I'll stay here with Leo and these two to contain the slime until you can bring Paige back to vanquish it, okay? Okay. Go get dressed. You are going to the summer of love."

"In the future everyone tried to control the demon with no name, but it can't be done," Chris said after Piper and Phoebe had gone back to the sixties.

"That's hardly a winning attitude, young man," Grams scolded. "And why in heaven's name couldn't the people in the future find some name for that thing?"

"I don't know. Ask your granddaughters," PJ suggested.

Grams looked at PJ. "Are you giving me lip, young lady?"

"No, but they're the ones that vanquished him in the future," PJ said.

"Speaking of the future, what's so awful that happens to Wyatt?" Leo asked.

PJ scoffed at that. Nothing happened to Wyatt. _He_ happened to everyone else.

Leo heard the sound PJ made and narrowed his blue eyes at her. She knew something.

"You know I can't tell you that," Chris said.

"You know something," Leo said, not taking his eyes off PJ.

PJ hesitated – until she saw the death glare on her cousin's face. "Uh, no," she said slowly. "No, I don't know anything."

"Come on, I'm an elder." Now Leo just sounded whiny.

As they continued trying to contain the demon with no name, the sisters changed the future – for the worse. Grams turned into a total hippie.

"I think that we should take the demon into our arms and make it feel safe," Grams said, earning strange looks from everyone.

Chris looked at Leo. "Leo, could I talk to you for a second please?"

"What about me?" PJ said, not wanting to be left out.

Chris rolled his eyes. "Fine. You can come, too."

Grams took Wyatt from Leo so he, Chris and PJ could talk.

"One of the sisters must have changed the past because clearly Penny never meant to change from flower child to demon hunter," Chris said.

"Talk about future consequences," PJ muttered under her breath.

"Think the girls can fix the timeline and get back here?" Leo asked.

"I don't know, but this thing is trying to back us into a corner," Chris said as the demon blocked the back door. "Take Wyatt and Joan Baez here into the conservatory. PJ and I will get what we need to fight it off."

For once, Leo actually listened to him.

"Who's Joan Baez?" PJ asked.

"Folk singer," Chris replied.

PJ made a face. Apparently the teenager didn't like folk music. "Why do you know who she is?"

"I know a lot of things," Chris said smugly.

"Do you know how to contain the slime?" PJ said slowly, her eyebrows shooting up.

Chris sighed. "No."

The demon would have swallowed Chris whole if the sisters hadn't gotten there in time.

"Stand back, fellas," Piper instructed.

Chris and Leo moved out of the vicinity so the sisters could vanquish the demon.

Even though PJ didn't know how much help she'd actually been considering they'd needed the sisters to get rid of the slime once and for all, even Piper had to admit that the seventeen year old had full control of her power. The oldest sister wasn't as opposed to substituting PJ in when they needed an extra hand and either Phoebe or Paige was otherwise engaged after that.

The sisters quickly went from thinking that PJ might have been a childhood friend of one of their future kids to thinking that they might have helped the younger girl with her magic. PJ worked well with the sisters, probably mainly because she went along with their plans, letting them take the lead. She knew martial arts – the same style of martial arts that Phoebe knew. She proved herself a fairly competent spell writer and she knew potions nearly as well as Piper.

When asked how she knew half the stuff she knew about magic, PJ smiled and told them that she learned from the best. Maybe it was just their egos, but the sisters thought they might have personally taught the kid in the future.

* * *

**Guest: Thank you. I'm glad you like it.**

**WinterRain36: Based on what we've seen in time travel episodes, I didn't think they would recognize PJ immediately. Grams and Patty didn't know the girls right away in That Seventies Episode and no one recognized Chris for a long time (even though I think they should have). Is there anything specific you would like to see PJ change? I'm thinking that if they stop Wyatt from turning evil, all the people he killed will be alive in the changed future.**

**ObsessedwReading: Thank you for your continued reviews. I appreciate them.**

**CharmedOpal: Thank you for your continued reviews. I'm glad you like this story so far.**

**Lizardmomma: Thank you! **

**Marc: Chris has more active powers than PJ. I'm trying to keep PJ's power fairly consistent with what little we know from the show. On the show PJ came into her powers when she was about three months old while Chris didn't come into his until 2006 and he was born in 2004. I don't know, but I don't think Melinda existed in the dark future, which means Wyatt and Chris wouldn't be able to call upon the power of three and it's possible that Phoebe's three daughters would. I'm sorry if you don't like that.**


	7. Chapter 6: Unhappy Birthday

**Chapter Six: Unhappy Birthday**

Chris's visits to the manor usually revolved around one thing – demons. He inevitably wanted the Charmed Ones to vanquish whatever demon he thought was after Wyatt right that second – and it changed daily. The white-lighter was all business. He'd never shown any interest in getting to know the sisters outside of his work as their white-lighter. He wasn't easy to get to know. He didn't like to talk about himself, citing future consequences as the reason until they eventually just stopped asking.

Chris Perry was not at the top of the guest list for Piper's birthday party so it was an unwelcome surprise when he orbed in on her birthday.

"No! We're not demon hunting. It's Piper's birthday," Phoebe said, not even waiting to see what he wanted.

Chris had been so busy looking for whatever evil turned Wyatt that he had completely forgotten about his mom's birthday.

"I'll demon hunt. Just get me out of here," PJ said to her cousin.

That was a strange request coming from her. Usually Chris couldn't pry PJ away from Phoebe on the rare occasions his aunt was in the manor. The seventeen year old hung on her mom's every word, as if it may be her last. Chris looked at his cousin kind of funny, wondering what was up with her.

"I don't think she likes Paige's gift for Piper." Phoebe hadn't needed her power to know the teenager was uncomfortable when they were making a man for Piper. It had been written all over the time traveler's face.

"Why? What'd you get her?" Chris asked, looking at Paige.

"A sex toy, to quote Phoebe," PJ answered for her aunt.

The teenager could have done without having a front row seat to watch her mom and aunt created a sex toy for Piper. It was too much information – _way_ too much information.

"I made the perfect man," Paige told Chris.

"Ugh." Chris didn't really want to hear about his aunts making a sex toy for his mom any more than his cousin had wanted to be there for the actual creation process. "That is wrong on so many levels."

Not the least of which was that Chris needed his mom and dad to get back together and that wouldn't happen if Piper was with the man his aunts had conjured out of thin air.

"He's just around for her birthday. She needs this," Paige said, not seeing why she had to defend herself to their white-lighter.

"Have you ever heard of personal gain?" Chris couldn't believe his aunt – the same aunt who had told him and PJ that they didn't use magic for personal gain on many occasions in the future – would conjure a date. It was something his teenage cousin would do, not something the sisters that had raised them would do. "Un-conjure him."

"I can't. Not until her birthday's over," Paige told him.

"And we're not demon hunting until her birthday's over either so you can go now," Phoebe said.

PJ looked at Chris. "Take me with you."

Paige took a twenty dollar bill out of her purse and gave it to the seventeen year old. "Here's some money to go to the movies or something. Don't come back until after the dinner party."

PJ took the money and put it in the back pocket of her jeans and then grabbed her cousin's hand. Chris orbed them to the Golden Gate Bridge.

PJ looked at Chris, a questioning look on her face. "I thought we were demon hunting."

"No. I wanted to talk to Piper about binding Wyatt's powers." That was the reason Chris had orbed to the manor.

"They would never do that," PJ said dismissively.

"Paige was gonna bind your powers when you were sixteen," Chris pointed out.

"Well, that's because I was a not so sweet sixteen year old. And even after everything I did, she didn't bind my powers." PJ shook her head. "There's no way they'll bind Wyatt's powers. He hasn't done anything yet."

"There _has_ to be a way," Chris said, frustration in his voice.

PJ looked at him, sorrow in her brown eyes. "It's not a bad idea, okay? I mean, if they bound his powers, he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone."

And her sisters, her Aunt Paige, maybe even her mom would still be alive. But that didn't matter. The Charmed Ones would never bind the twice-blessed son's powers.

"And nobody would hurt him," Chris said.

"Yeah, because that's really my concern," PJ said sarcastically, whatever sympathy she may have felt a minute ago gone, leaving resentment in its place.

Chris glanced at his cousin. "I know he's done some awful things, but he's still my brother."

"And he killed my sisters!" PJ's voice was filled with anger.

"I know." Chris put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off and took a step back, holding her hands up to warn him not to touch her. "That's not gonna happen. That's why I came back. To stop him from turning evil."

The seventeen year old looked grim. "Okay, but what if he doesn't _turn_ evil? What it he was just…born evil? It's nature versus nurture. You were both raised by Piper, right? And Wyatt's the only one that turned evil. It's his nature. I mean, how else do you explain it?"

"Someone turned him," Chris began.

"Who? Tell me who turned him because I've been here for a couple of months now and you've been here longer than that and we haven't changed anything yet!" PJ took a deep breath to calm down. "So I'm sorry, but it's possible that he was born evil."

"Well, there's one way to find out," Chris said.

PJ narrowed her eyes in speculation. "Okay, I'm listening."

"There's this demon that can scan for evil," Chris said.

"And what if Wyatt is evil?" PJ studied him. She may not have her mom's power of empathy, but she knew her cousin. He couldn't lie to her as easily as he lied to the sisters. She knew his tells. If Chris was lying, his expression would be guarded and his posture would be unnaturally stiff, his shoulders hunched a little.

"If they won't bind his powers, we'll stop him," Chris said, his distress showing on his face at the very idea of stopping his brother.

PJ smiled sadly, knowing how hard it was for Chris to say that. She didn't know if she would be able to say the same thing if it was one of her sisters that had turned. "Look, we can't do anything today. We're obviously not welcome in the manor. What do you wanna do?" She pointed at him. "And don't say demon hunting. We're taking the day off."

"We can't. We're running out of time," Chris said, a strange mixture of determination and desperation in his voice.

"We're taking the day off," PJ repeated through gritted teeth. "If you can't think of anything to do besides hunt demons, I'm sure I can come up with something."

Chris grabbed his cousin's hand and wordlessly orbed to the beach. It was PJ's favorite place.

PJ looked at him. "You were supposed to pick something you wanted to do, not something I wanted to do."

"I did," Chris said. "The beach is for you. Capp's Corner is for me."

PJ nodded, unsurprised her cousin wanted to go to his favorite North Beach restaurant, one of many shops and restaurants that were boarded up in the future. "Capp's Corner sounds good. Really good."

PJ ordered ravioli and Chris ordered lasagna. They were halfway through dinner when Chris dropped his fork.

"Piper's calling me. Something must be wrong." Chris was already standing up, pushing his chair back.

They orbed directly into the manor, where the sisters and a man that Chris could only assume was his mom's magical date were standing around Wyatt's empty crib.

"Where's Wyatt?" Chris asked, looking around.

"Demons took him. Demons took my son," Piper said, her voice shaking.

"Damn it. What happens if this is the evil that was after Wyatt? That's the only reason I came back. I was supposed to protect him and I was eating Italian." Chris shook his head. Of course this would happen on the one day he did something for himself.

"It was really good Italian," PJ said nervously, knowing Chris would probably blame her for insisting they take the day off.

Chris glared at his cousin. "I should never have listened to you. We can't just take the day off. I would think that someone who is so concerned about what happens to Wyatt would understand that."

"Since when is PJ concerned about Wyatt?" Paige said, her eyebrows shooting up. They'd all noticed that the time traveler in question could barely stand to be in the same room as the baby.

"It doesn't matter anymore," Chris muttered.

"Yes, it does actually." Piper was very interested in why the seventeen year old was so concerned about her son.

"Because-" PJ started to say something and then she lost her voice. The anti-truth spell had worked a little too well.

Chris glanced at his cousin, knowing he would have to tell the sisters the truth because PJ quite literally couldn't. "Because I came here to keep Wyatt from turning evil."

Paige stared at the white-lighter in disbelief. "Wait, don't you mean stopping evil from hurting him?"

PJ made a sound that might have been a snort.

"I didn't think you'd help me if you knew the truth. I knew you wouldn't. The evil from the future I came back to stop isn't a demon." Chris paused, knowing they still wouldn't believe him. Wyatt was the apple of his parents' eyes and he was just the sisters' white-lighter. There was no contest. There never had been, even when they knew Chris was their son. "It's Wyatt."

"You're lying," Piper said in an accusatory tone. She crossed her arms in front of her, closing off completely. Nothing Chris could say would get through to her now.

"No, I'm not. He's gonna grow up and terrorize people with his powers. Take over. Kill even." It was kind of ironic. For the first time since he'd been in the past, Chris was telling the uncensored truth and not one person believed him.

Something clicked for Phoebe and she whipped her head around to look at PJ. "Wait, is Wyatt the one who killed your sisters?"

"What?" Piper demanded.

"What did you say to her?" Chris's eyes went from PJ to Phoebe. He felt a tiny glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, his aunt would believe his cousin.

"Uh, she had a nightmare about the night her sisters died. She said it wasn't a demon that killed them. It was the last person you would ever expect to be evil," Phoebe explained.

Piper glared at her sister. "Phoebe! Why didn't you say anything?"

"Well, I didn't know she meant Wyatt," Phoebe said defensively.

"Well, she was lying," Piper hissed.

Phoebe didn't say anything, her loyalty to her sisters winning out. The seeds of doubt planted by the memory of her conversation with the seventeen year old were pushed to the back of her mind.

Chris threw his hands up in the air. He was ready to give up. If they didn't believe his cousin with her sweet and innocent baby-face and doe eyes, they would never believe him. "Fine, we're both lying."

"Lying about what?" Leo had orbed in just in time to hear the end of the heated argument.

"Oh, just our son turning evil and killing PJ's sisters," Piper said, as if it was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"I know who has Wyatt. It's a demonic cult called the Order. They used to be the most powerful force until their leader was vanquished. They think he's been reincarnated. He's young enough to be turned evil, especially by them," Leo said.

That was a first. Chris didn't think there had ever been a time growing up when Leo had stuck up for him.

Piper narrowed her eyes at Leo, her temper flaring up again. "You don't actually believe them, do you?"

"I don't know, but I do know that we need to save Wyatt," Leo said.

"Wait, did the demon that took him point a scepter at him?" Chris thought he might know how to save his brother. He knew the Order from the future.

"Yeah. Why?" Leo said slowly, a frown on his face.

"Did he bring his shield up around you?" Chris asked, ignoring Leo's question completely.

Leo nodded. "Yeah."

"They used their powers to turn him, to reverse his morality. See, he thinks bad is good now and good is bad," Chris explained.

"So?" Leo said.

"So Wyatt brings his shield up around me. He thinks I'm a threat," Chris said, a hint of impatience in his voice. His family had yet to reach the same obvious conclusion that he had.

"Yeah, so do I," Piper said, her distrust for the white-lighter at an all-time high.

"Listen to me!" Chris raised his voice. "They reversed his sense of morality. That means his shield will protect him from you, but not from me. Please, I'm the only one who can save him. Let me help."

"Chris, we don't need your help. I will get my son back and when I do, I don't want to see you anymore." There was a quiet determination in Piper's voice.

The air was thick with tension. The sisters were looking at Chris like he was the enemy. He looked at his cousin and saw the same helplessness he felt reflected in her eyes.

Just when Chris didn't believe it could possibly get any worse, PJ opened her big mouth without thinking.

"Look, I know you don't want to believe us because you think your golden boy can do no wrong, but-"

"No, I don't believe you," Piper cut her off angrily. "And I don't want you here anymore, PJ. Leave. Now."

Chris grabbed his cousin's hand and orbed to the Golden Gate Bridge.

PJ blew out a breath. "Whew. I thought Piper was going to blow me up for a minute there."

"You're lucky she didn't," Chris said.

PJ looked at Chris tentatively. "How mad are you at me on a scale of one to ten?"

It had been easy to blame his cousin, but he knew she wasn't really to blame. Maybe it was her idea to take the day off, but she didn't turn Wyatt evil. If there was anyone who wanted to stop his brother from turning as much as he did, it was her. She was his only ally in the past and in the future. They had to stick together.

"I'm not mad at you, PJ," Chris said.

PJ widened her eyes, surprised by how quickly Chris had gotten over it. He knew how to hold a grudge. He'd been holding onto the one against Leo for two decades. "You're not? But you said-"

"I know what I said." Chris looked his cousin in the eye. "I shouldn't have said it. It was cruel."

"It's okay. We're okay," PJ assured him. "Are you okay?"

Chris nodded stoically.

"Liar," PJ said.

"Yeah, well…"

They stood there in silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable. On the contrary, Chris and PJ were completely comfortable with each other. They didn't feel the need to fill the silence with meaningless words that wouldn't change anything about their current predicament.

The moment of truth in the manor had changed everything and nothing they could say now would fix their strained relationship - or lack thereof - with the women who should have been their family. Whatever had happened between them and the sisters, at least they still had each other. It was the two of them against the world, just like it had been since Paige's untimely death in the future.


	8. Chapter Seven: Shattered Trust

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews and the ideas some of you have shared with me. I might use some of your ideas in this story.**

**This is a quick chapter showing a little bit of what everyone is thinking after the events in the last chapter. This starts right after the last chapter, which coincided with Prince Charmed. The Legend of Sleepy Halliwell hasn't happened yet. The demon in this chapter and the next chapter is from the episode Coyote Piper in Season Three.**

**Chapter Seven: Shattered Trust**

"Leo!" Piper called for the third time in a matter of minutes, her eyes looking up at the ceiling of the attic. When her old white-lighter and soon to be ex-husband didn't come, the Charmed One sighed heavily.

From inside the crystal cage, Paige's lips curved into a smirk. "If your husband doesn't show up in the next hour, your sister's dead."

That wasn't Paige talking. It was the alchemist, Kierkan, possessing Paige – the same alchemist whose girlfriend had possessed Piper a few years before. The sisters thought they killed him, but somehow he was back - with a vengeance.

It might not matter if Leo showed up or not. The sisters knew all too well that the only way to get Kierkan out of Paige's body was to kill Paige. The alchemist _could_ bring her back from the dead, but that didn't necessarily mean he would. Even if he did, they would need Leo there to heal her.

"We need the power of three." There was a sense of urgency in Phoebe's voice.

"I _know_ we need the power of three, Phoebe, but we don't have the power of three because a demon is possessing our sister," Piper said, taking her frustration at the situation out on her sister.

"Can Chris get Leo? I mean, he's a white-lighter, isn't he?" Phoebe knew how her sister felt about the time travelers – _both_ of them - but she didn't know what else to do. Chris might be their only hope.

Piper looked at Phoebe incredulously. "What? After all the lies? I don't trust him any further than I could throw him."

"I know, honey. I don't trust him either, but I don't think we have a choice," Phoebe said gently.

"I swear, if he says my son is evil again, I'm gonna blow his ass so far into the future…"

"Let's just call him, okay?" Phoebe said.

Chris was a little surprised and more than a little wary when he heard Piper and Phoebe calling him since the last time he'd seen them, Piper told him in no uncertain terms that she didn't want to see him anymore.

The twenty-two year old time traveler had known they wouldn't believe that the twice-blessed son of a Charmed One and a white-lighter would turn evil - and he'd been right.

The half witch half white-lighter didn't know if they'd believe it coming from anyone, but they certainly weren't going to believe it coming from him - not after all the lies he'd told them during his stay in the past.

In all his life, Chris didn't think he'd ever seen his mother as angry as she had been when he'd told the ugly truth about what her firstborn would become – even in the future when demons had gone after him and his brother. After all, the demons were at least honest about their intentions. Chris wasn't.

When he revealed that he was there to keep Wyatt from turning evil and not to stop evil from hurting Wyatt, whatever fragile trust the sisters had for Chris was shattered. They saw it as the ultimate betrayal.

The twenty-two year old didn't know if they would ever be able to trust him now and he _needed_ them to trust him. It would be kind of hard for him to save Wyatt when Piper didn't want him anywhere near the baby.

Chris was planning on giving the sisters a few days to cool off and then asking Paige to help him get back into Piper's good graces. In the future, his Aunt Paige was the one he went to for help. If anyone would help him now, it was Paige.

It had only been a day and it was Piper and Phoebe calling, not Paige. This was already not going according to the time traveler's tentative plan.

"What's wrong?" PJ asked her cousin, who had trailed off mid-sentence as they narrowed down their list of the most likely suspects to turn Wyatt.

"Piper's calling." Chris sounded conflicted. He was debating with himself whether they should go to the manor or not.

"Let's go," PJ said anxiously.

Chris hesitated. "Uh, no. No, she's calling me, not you. I'll go. You stay here."

"Why can't I come?" Since she was no longer welcome to stay at the manor, PJ wouldn't see Phoebe unless she went with Chris whenever the sisters happened to call him. She couldn't be in the past where her mom was alive and well and _not_ see her.

"I don't even know what she wants. She could still be pissed." There was no could be about it. Piper _would _still be pissed.

"You're worried," PJ said, sympathy for her cousin in her brown eyes.

"Well, yeah, PJ, I need Piper to trust me and I'm public enemy number one with her right now," Chris said.

"Oh, I don't think you're number one." PJ's tone was light, but Chris's expression remained tight with worry. "Come on, Chris. What's the worst that could happen? She's not going to vanquish her white-lighter - or her son." She looked at her cousin pointedly.

"She doesn't know I'm her son. They're not our parents," Chris said impatiently.

PJ stared at Chris with sadness in her big brown eyes. "How can you say that?"

"Leo threatened to have my soul recycled." Chris wanted to scare his cousin. As bad a parent as Leo was, even he wouldn't have done that if he'd known Chris was a Halliwell. But he didn't know. None of them did. Where the seventeen year old time traveler saw her mom and aunts, she should have seen three very pissed off Charmed Ones who would do whatever they thought they had to in order to protect Wyatt.

And, at the moment, the sisters thought the time travelers posed a threat to the baby.

"What? When?" PJ said, completely shocked. While she knew her family didn't know who she and Chris really were, they were still the same people who had always protected her and cared for her when she was a child. She didn't think they would ever hurt her or Chris.

"It was when I first got here. He didn't trust me. Kind of like they don't trust us now," Chris said pointedly. "I'm going. Stay here."

That was the end of the conversation. Chris had to have the last word. He orbed to the manor before his cousin could say anything else. He was shocked by what he found when he got there.


	9. Chapter Eight: The Power of Two Plus One

**Chapter Eight: The Power of Two Plus One**

It didn't bode well for Chris that the one person who might actually help him was currently trapped in a crystal cage. No, it didn't bode well for him at all.

"What's going on? Why is Paige in a cage?" Chris didn't want to deal with Piper without anyone in his corner, not when she was this angry.

"Because that's not Paige. She's possessed," Piper said wearily.

"And you want my help?" Chris's intelligent green eyes narrowed, assessing. Before Piper wouldn't even let him help save Wyatt and now all of a sudden she wanted his help to save Paige. She must be really desperate.

"No, I don't want your help. I want Leo's help," Piper muttered unhappily.

"And you want me to go up there and get him?" Chris said, knowing they wouldn't need him there anymore if Leo were there.

"Yes," Piper said grudgingly.

"If he's not coming when you call him, you really think he's gonna come when I ask him to?" Chris said.

"He will if he knows what's good for him," Piper said, more to Leo than Chris, her eyes on the ceiling.

"Just tell him Paige is possessed by the alchemist. He'll come," Phoebe said.

Chris's brow furrowed. "Wait a minute, the alchemist? I remember that story from the future. Only Piper was the one who was possessed, not Paige."

Piper rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that was years ago. This time the alchemist is possessing Paige. So unless you want to tell us how we got the demon out of our sister's body in the future, go get Leo."

Chris didn't think this had happened in his future, but he wasn't going to tell them that.

Either he or PJ must have screwed up the future somehow.

The time travelers had vanquished upper level demons that the Charmed Ones didn't even know existed. Maybe one of them found a way to come back – and brought friends with him…friends with a grudge against the sisters.

Chris had to fix this, but he didn't know _how_ to fix it. It seemed near impossible.

"It takes the power of three to vanquish the alchemist," Chris said, realizing just how much they had screwed up the future. His aunt was possessed by a demon that could only be vanquished by the power of three. Without her, there was no power of three.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Piper said slowly, her voice laced with sarcasm.

"Leo can't help you," Chris said, hoping that his mom and aunt actually had a plan beyond just calling Leo.

"Leo can heal her. Can you heal?" Phoebe said through gritted teeth. "I didn't think so."

"Can Leo heal the dead? Because your sister here has less than an hour to live," Paige – or rather Kierkan – said, a smug look on her face.

"What?" His aunt couldn't die. It wasn't her time. If she died now, it was because he and his cousin had screwed up the future somehow. God, what had he done? Chris felt horrible.

Piper pointed at Paige. "Yeah, well, if she dies, you die so I wouldn't be that happy about it if I were you."

"No one's dying, okay?" Phoebe said, not wanting to think about her baby sister dying.

No one was dying. Not if Chris could help it. He orbed away without a word.

Phoebe frowned. "Where'd he go?"

Piper threw her hands up in the air, at a complete loss as to what to do. "Hopefully to get Leo."

But Chris wasn't going to get Leo. He was going to get PJ.

"Good. You're back. What'd they want?" PJ said.

"Leo." Chris still didn't know _why_ the sisters thought Leo could help.

PJ raised her eyebrows. "So they called you? What, because you and Leo are so close?"

It didn't seem to matter what timeline they were in. Chris and his father were not close and probably never would be.

"He's up there," Chris said, knowing the sisters had only called him because he was the only one who could go up there.

"When _isn't_ he up there?" PJ said.

Normally Chris appreciated his cousin's wit, but they didn't have time for that right now.

"We don't need him. He can't help them now. Paige is possessed and it's gonna take the power of three to vanquish the demon. She doesn't have a lot of time. Come on," Chris said hurriedly.

PJ stood up from the couch. "What's the plan?"

"We need the power of three. We have the power of two…and you," Chris said.

"Me?" PJ said, putting her hand to her chest.

"Yeah, you. You're a Charmed One in the future, aren't you?" Chris said.

"Oh, no, no, no. That's not how it works," PJ told him.

"Well, it's gonna have to work. Paige's life depends on it. Come on." Chris grabbed PJ's hand and orbed to the manor.

"Chris! You were supposed to get Leo. Not PJ." Piper didn't bother to hide her disappointment when the white-lighter showed up with PJ.

"It's nice to see you, too," PJ said sarcastically.

"Grab their hands and say the dispossession spell," Chris told his cousin.

"What?" Phoebe said, looking from the twenty-two year old to the seventeen year old.

"This is so not gonna work," PJ said, but the teen witch grabbed her mom's hand with one hand and her aunt's hand with the other.

"We need the power of three. Not the power of two plus one," Phoebe said to Chris, catching on to what the time traveler's not so brilliant plan was.

"PJ, say the spell," Chris said with a sense of urgency in his voice.

"I don't have it memorized." PJ looked at Chris expectantly.

Chris walked over to the book to find the spell, but, before he could, Phoebe said the spell. She knew it wouldn't work. Maybe if she proved that to the white-lighter, he would listen to them and go get Leo – the sooner, the better. She didn't know how much time her baby sister had left.

"_Host soul reject the poison's essence_

_Let love of light end this cruel possession."_

The three female witches reluctantly repeated the spell together – some, namely Piper, more reluctantly than others.

"_Host soul reject the poison's essence_

_Let love of light end this cruel possession."_

And nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

"See?" Phoebe said, letting go of the seventeen year old time traveler's hand. "Piper, Paige, and I are the Charmed Ones. You can't substitute any old witch in for a Charmed One."

"That's what I was trying to tell you." PJ held her hands up in a helpless gesture. " It's not just about being a Charmed One. The Charmed Ones are three sisters. _Sister witches_."

As his cousin gestured with her hands, the moonstone ring on her ring finger caught Chris's eye. "Your ring. PJ, your ring!"

"It's my dad's ring. I always wear it, Chris." PJ looked at her cousin like he should know that. He'd only seen her wear it every day for years – ever since her dad died.

"And what did he use the ring for?" Chris didn't wait for an answer. "You can use it to go to someone you love, right? Your sisters. You reconstituted the Charmed Ones in the future. You can do it again now to save Paige."

"My sisters are dead," PJ reminded him.

"Go to a time when they weren't dead and bring them back here," Chris said.

Piper stared at PJ in complete and utter disbelief. "_You_ and your sisters reconstituted the Charmed Ones?"

"How is that possible?" Phoebe said quietly.

Chris ignored the sisters completely, focusing on PJ since she was their only hope if they wanted to save Paige. "Do you know how it works?"

"Yeah, I think so," PJ said uncertainly. She had never used her dad's ring to time travel before. She closed her eyes and blew out a breath. She was going to see her sisters again. "Parker. Peyton."

The seventeen year old disappeared in a flash of pink light from the moonstone.

"Hmm three sister witches with P names. Imagine that," Phoebe said, looking at Chris.

His mom and aunts might not know that he or PJ were family, but even they had to know that three sister witches from the future who could reconstitute the Charmed Ones were Halliwells. They would know that the father of the three sister witches was a Cupid. They now knew more than they ever needed to know about the future.

Chris knew that this could screw up the future, but it was already screwed up. He came back to save Wyatt, not to cause Paige's death prematurely. Paige was the one he went to for help with his homework and the one he went to for money in the future. She couldn't die. She just couldn't.

This was the only way Chris knew to save his aunt. He just hoped PJ got back in time.

* * *

**A/N: As always, thanks for the reviews. This is the start of the reveal of Chris and PJ's true identities. I've always planned on PJ and her sisters needing to call upon the power of three to save one of the sisters. Parker and Peyton will only be in the story for 1-2 chapters. The focus will still be on the Charmed Ones, Chris, and PJ. Please let me know what you think and if there is anything you would like to see.**


	10. Chapter Nine: The Two PJs

**Chapter Nine: The Two PJs**

The oriental rug PJ was standing on in the attic disappeared right from under her feet. Everything in the attic – the colorful glass windows, the red armchair, the old dollhouse that had been her mother and her aunts' and then hers and her sisters – swirled around her.

And then PJ felt solid ground beneath her feet and everything came into focus again. PJ looked around. By all appearances, she was still in the attic in the manor, but Chris, Phoebe, Paige and Piper were nowhere to be seen.

PJ heard yelling coming from downstairs. It wasn't unusual to hear yelling in the manor when a demon attacked. She walked downstairs cautiously, not knowing what time she was in or how her family would react to the sudden appearance of an older version of Prudence Johnna Halliwell.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she could hear the raised voices clearly. It wasn't a demon attack. It was her – her younger self - and her Aunt Paige.

Her parents were already dead then.

PJ and her aunt had always gotten along great - until her mom died that is.

And then Paige went from being the cool aunt that got her ice cream and took her to get her nails done to being the guardian that took away her toys when she talked back and wouldn't let her play with her friends until her homework was done.

PJ hadn't really appreciated her aunt acting like she was her mom.

And it only got worse as PJ got older. Her rebellious streak rivaled even her mother's. And Paige was no slouch in the discipline department. It led to some knockdown, drag out fights between the two of them.

PJ stood outside her old bedroom door, wondering what they were fighting about _this_ time. It could be anything.

"Where the hell were you?" Paige demanded from behind the closed door.

"Out." PJ heard her younger self answer her aunt.

"That's not good enough. And have you been drinking?" Paige said, a dangerous edge to her voice.

"Just a little bit." From outside the door, the time traveler cringed at the slurred words. She thought it was probably more than a little bit.

"Unbelievable!" Paige said, shaking her head at her drunk sixteen year old niece. "Did it slip your mind that you're grounded?"

"See, that's why I had to sneak out." PJ heard her younger self reply.

"Don't you mean _beam_ out?" Paige corrected knowingly. "You know what, that's it. I'm casting an anti-beaming spell until after you're done being grounded - whenever that is, and it's not gonna be anytime soon."

"You can't do that!" But that's exactly what Paige _had_ done. The anti-beaming spell that her aunt wrote would become a go-to spell for Lord Wyatt.

Now PJ knew exactly what night it was. The night Paige cast that spell was the night she died.

PJ didn't know _why_ the ring brought her to the night her aunt died. Maybe she could keep Paige from dying – this Paige _and_ the Paige in 2004. Maybe that's why she was here on this night of all nights.

"Oh, yes, I can and I will," Paige promised determinately from behind the closed door.

PJ knew what her younger self was going to say next…_My mom would never use magic on me to stop me from using my powers and neither would Aunt Piper. I hate you._ She wanted to stop herself. They were the last words she said to her aunt and she'd always regretted them.

The time traveler opened the door to her old bedroom. "Uh, you don't want to do that," she said to her aunt.

Her younger self and Paige both turned to look at her. The sixteen year old frowned in confusion, not knowing what to make of her doppelganger. Paige stared at her niece's double open-mouthed.

"There are two of you," Paige finally managed. She didn't know what she was going to do with her PJ. She didn't need another one running around.

"Not exactly," PJ said slowly, not sure if her aunt would believe her. "I'm, uh, from the future."

The subtle differences between the two PJs were barely noticeable unless someone was looking for them, which Paige was.

Sixteen year old PJ's hair was down and straight as a pin. She was wearing a black top that didn't quite cover her stomach – or her navel ring - and a short denim miniskirt. Her bloodshot eyes were lined with thick black eyeliner and her expression was one of pure defiance.

Seventeen year old PJ's sleek brown hair was pulled back into a practical ponytail. She was wearing a work out top and yoga pants that she'd borrowed from Phoebe. They were a little big on her. She was only a year older than her younger self, but she looked older than that. It was the kind of age that came with experience, not the passing of time.

Paige studied the time traveler, her brow knit. "Well, you can't be from that far in the future."

"I'm seventeen. It's been about a year since-" PJ stopped herself from telling them it had been a year since Paige died. "It's been about a year. Listen, you don't want to cast the anti-beaming spell."

Paige eyed her suspiciously. "If this is some ploy to get out of-"

"It's not," the seventeen year old assured her. "That spell is going to be used against me in the future – and I don't just mean by you."

"Oh," Paige said quietly, taken aback.

"Yeah," the seventeen year old said. "And it's just gonna piss me off."

"I don't really care if it pisses you off." Paige glared at her. "I'm pretty pissed off at you right now." She glanced at the sixteen year old PJ and frowned. "I mean, her."

"Well, _she's_ just gonna go out the window as soon as you leave," the seventeen year old told her aunt.

"How'd you know that?" The sixteen year old stared at her with wide eyes.

"I'm you," the time traveler said, rolling her eyes.

"Then shouldn't you be on my side?" The sixteen year old muttered unhappily.

"No. You need to stay home tonight. There's going to be an attack. Aunt Paige is going to need you. Be careful tonight." PJ looked from her younger self to her aunt. "Both of you."

Paige nodded. "Okay. So is that why you came back?"

"Actually…I need to borrow Parker and Peyton. We need the power of three." PJ could have just taken her sisters and left while her younger self and Paige were fighting, but she knew her aunt would have been worried when she realized they were gone. She wouldn't do that to her aunt. Her younger self might have, but she wouldn't.

"What's wrong with Parker and Peyton in your time?" Paige was always going to be overprotective of her nieces – even if it was her nieces from the future that were in trouble.

The seventeen year old's face fell. "Uh, well, I'm not exactly in my time," she said, trying to avoid telling them that Parker and Peyton were dead in the future.

"Obviously," Paige said.

The time traveler shot her aunt a look. "Even before this. I've actually been in 2004."

Paige frowned. "I don't understand. If it's 2004, Piper and Phoebe are still alive. You don't need your sisters for the power of three."

"You're kind of…"

"Kind of what?" Paige demanded, her eyebrows shooting up.

"Possessed by the alchemist," the time traveler muttered quickly.

"What? No." Paige shook her head. "I was never possessed by the alchemist. I think I would know."

"You weren't?" The seventeen year old said weakly.

"No!" Paige said with absolute certainty.

"Well, you are now. Chris and I must have screwed things up," the time traveler muttered, more to herself than her aunt.

"Wait a minute, Chris and you? Chris is in 2004 with you?" Paige said.

"Yeah. It was his idea for me to come get Parker and Peyton. I used my dad's ring," the seventeen year old said quietly, looking at the moonstone ring on her ring finger.

"Okay, _why_ are you and Chris in 2004?" Paige asked, feeling like she was still missing something.

The time traveler laughed nervously. "That's a lot of history."

Paige rolled her eyes. "You said you're from a year in the future. How much can happen in a year?"

"Death. _A lot_ of death," the seventeen year old said.

Paige frowned, trying to understand. "And you had to go back to _2004_ to stop it from happening?"

"The evil responsible, well, it can't be killed in the future. It's too strong. We had to go to the past to stop it," the time traveler explained.

"What is the evil?" Paige asked.

PJ remembered how Piper, Paige and Phoebe had acted when Chris told them that Wyatt was the evil in the future. This was different. This time Paige would know PJ was her niece, not some random girl from the future. But, still…she was hardly the perfect niece and Wyatt was Paige's nephew. She didn't know if her aunt would believe her.

"I can't tell you that," PJ said, lowering her gaze.

"Well, then I can't let you take my nieces anywhere," Paige said, a challenging glint in her eyes. She wanted to know what they were up against before her nieces went anywhere.

"Look, I know I'm not exactly the greatest niece in the world." PJ looked at her younger self, wishing she had been an easier kid. "I mean, I snuck out and got drunk and that was just tonight." She looked her aunt in the eyes. "You have no reason to trust me. I haven't given you one. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. But I need Parker and Peyton. We have to save you."

Paige held her time traveling niece's gaze. "Fine. I'm coming with you."

"Uh, okay, but there are a few things you should know," the seventeen year old said hastily, following her aunt to her sisters' bedroom.

Paige stopped in her tracks. "Like what?"

"You guys don't know who we are. You think I'm PJ Johnson and Chris is Chris Perry. Not Halliwell," PJ began, stressing the not Halliwell part.

"And we believed you? How stupid are we?" Paige said, speaking for herself and her sisters. "I mean, Chris looks like a combination of Piper and Prue. And you…well, there's a reason why Piper called you Little Phoebe."

"You don't know who we are," PJ repeated. "And my mom and Aunt Piper don't know they're dead in the future."

"Understandable," Paige said. She wouldn't have told her sisters that they were dead either.

In maybe five minutes, PJ told Paige more about the future than she'd told Paige, her Phoebe, or Piper the whole time she'd been in the past.

This was the woman who had basically raised her. Paige knew the teenager's tells. She didn't buy the half-truths that she and her sisters seemed to accept from the time travelers in the past.

"Hey, about what you said back there?" Paige said, stopping outside the door to Parker and Peyton's room and turning to look at her niece. "You're right. I don't trust you. You – or she – is gonna have to earn back my trust. But I love you. You know that, right?"

PJ smiled. "I love you, too. Thank you, for everything you've done for me and my sisters." The seventeen year old threw her arms around her aunt and Paige hugged her tightly.

* * *

**A/N: As always, thank you for the reviews. The next chapter will be with everyone, including PJ, Parker and Peyton, back in 2004. I was going to have them go back in this chapter, but I thought it made the chapter too long and didn't flow well.**


	11. Chapter Ten: Issues

**Chapter Ten: Issues**

It was hard to say who was more frustrated – Chris or Piper and Phoebe.

Chris didn't want Piper and Leo to know that he was their son. It wasn't just about future consequences – even though that was the reason he gave his mother and his aunt when they questioned him about who his parents were and who PJ's parents were.

The real reason was that Christopher Perry Halliwell had unresolved issues with his parents – issues that the twenty two year old had never dealt with and couldn't deal with right now.

There was his mother – the only parent who was there for him. Piper was an unwavering source of love and protection – right up until she died. Every year she made his favorite - lasagna - and baked a chocolate cake with butter cream frosting for his birthday. She knew Chris liked chocolate cake and Wyatt liked ice cream cake. It was Chris's fourteenth birthday and he had just opened one of his birthday presents, a new videogame he really wanted. Chris wasn't the only teenage boy that wanted that game. Piper had to go to three different stores to find it. A powerful upper level demon crashed Chris's birthday before he had opened all of his presents. The demon was after Chris, but Piper got in between them. The fireball that was meant for Chris hit her.

And then there was his father. Leo was always there for Wyatt. He was there for every birthday and every baseball game. He was never there for Chris though. He never attended one single piano recital. He probably didn't even know Chris played the piano. He wasn't there on Chris's fourteenth birthday, not that anyone expected him to be there. After thirteen years of never being there, Chris would have been shocked if Leo had graced them with his presence. His name was on the card with the videogame – _Mom and Dad_ - in Piper's handwriting. Who was Piper kidding? Chris knew the gift was from his mother, not his father. Chris didn't want to call for his absentee father when his mother was attacked, but he did. Not that it mattered. Leo didn't come – not until it was too late to heal Piper. She was dead.

On a day that should have been happy, a newly fourteen year old Chris lost the only parent he had. He'd never really had Leo.

Chris couldn't have his mother back only to lose her again when he went back to the future. He couldn't lose her – not again.

The time traveler was just supposed to be Piper's white-lighter. That was all he could be. He was going to be in and out of the future.

It helped that Piper wasn't acting like the mother Chris knew and loved. She would never have let her son stay in the backroom of her club, live off fast food, and fight demons alone. The time traveler could separate this version of Piper from the mother who raised him in his mind. But if she started acting like his mom, the line would be blurred in his mind.

It would kill Chris to lose his mom again.

Completely ignorant of their white-lighter's inner demons, Piper and Phoebe were growing increasingly frustrated with every question they asked that went unanswered.

They weren't stupid. They knew PJ had to be a Halliwell. After all, only a daughter of a Charmed One could reconstitute the Charmed Ones in the future. It was their heritage, their destiny, their family line. They just didn't know which Charmed One was the time traveler's mother.

And if Chris was PJ's cousin, he was the son of a Charmed One. But again, which Charmed One?

Piper was having a hard enough time accepting the fact that the time travelers that said her baby was evil in the future were family. Surely the time travelers wouldn't say that about their brother, either of them…would they? No. Wyatt had to be their cousin. Chris wasn't her son and PJ wasn't her daughter. They didn't even act like they liked her.

Phoebe didn't think Chris could be her son. He was a white-lighter. She wasn't - and she wasn't going to have a child with a white-lighter. She was over forbidden romances. Her forbidden romance with the source of all evil hadn't ended well for her.

That left Piper and Leo or Paige. Either of her sisters could have had a son who was part white-lighter and part witch.

PJ wasn't a white-lighter though - at least not that the sisters knew of. She could be any of theirs. She could be Phoebe's.

Phoebe felt a connection with PJ. Maybe it was the empath in her. She had liked the seventeen year old time traveler almost from the first time they talked.

"You can't deny the fact that you and PJ are family." Chris didn't deny it so Phoebe continued. "Who are your parents?" She looked the time traveler directly in the eye.

"I can't tell you who our parents are. It can mess with the whole future," Chris said for what felt like the hundredth time.

"I swear, if you say future consequences again…"

They didn't find out what it was that Piper would do. Piper stopped talking, distracted by the sudden appearance of PJ, a girl who looked a few years younger than PJ, a girl who looked about nine or ten, and…Paige?

It wasn't _their _Paige. Their Paige was still in the crystal cage, possessed by the alchemist. It was definitely Paige though. She was older. Her face was older, more mature. Her hair was longer and had more red in it.

Paige stumbled on her feet when she landed like she had when she first learned how to control her orbing. She regained her balance and narrowed her eyes at PJ. "Don't laugh."

"I wasn't going to," PJ said, her eyes sparkling with laughter.

"Paige?" Piper said, wondering why Paige was with PJ and her sisters. Was Paige their mother?

"What is she doing here?" Chris demanded of PJ, not happy about the arrival of his aunt. She knew exactly who their parents were and he didn't know if she would keep it to herself.

"It's nice to see you, too, Chris," Paige said with the sarcasm that both Chris and PJ had inherited from her.

"Sorry, but you're not supposed to be here," Chris said quietly.

"Neither are you," Paige said slowly, her eyes narrowed at her nephew.

"What are you doing here?" Piper asked her sister.

"Saving my ass," Paige replied, her eyes on her younger self in the crystal cage.

"You said a bad word," Peyton said.

Parker smiled, thinking she was much older than her ten year old sister, and looked at PJ, who smiled back at her.

"You can't save yourself," Chris said to Paige, as if it should be obvious. "Your powers are tied to her powers and she's possessed by the alchemist."

"Candle." Paige tried to move a candle to her hand to prove her nephew wrong. It only proved him right when the candle didn't move an inch. She looked from Chris to PJ, knowing they were responsible for the change to her past and her loss of power. "You guys really made a mess out of things."

The arrogance disappeared from Chris's stance, his shoulders slumping. "I know."

"It's okay. We'll fix it," PJ said. "What was the spell again?"

Phoebe repeated the dispossession spell.

PJ glanced at her younger sisters. "You guys got that?"

"Yeah." Parker smiled with timid confidence.

Peyton didn't even act like she heard the question.

"Peyton?" PJ said uncertainly, trying to get her baby sister's attention.

Peyton was watching Phoebe intently. The ten year old had been too young when their mother died to remember her, but she knew who Phoebe was from pictures.

"Peyton," PJ said in a tone that was unusually serious – especially for the sixteen year old PJ that Parker and Peyton were familiar with.

"What?" Peyton said.

"Did you hear the spell?" PJ asked slowly. She sighed and repeated the spell.

"I know," Peyton said indignantly.

"Okay, let's do this." PJ held her left hand out and Parker took it. Peyton hurried to PJ's right side and grabbed her right hand.

"Wait," Chris said with a sense of urgency in his voice. He picked up the green glass bottle from the floor. "Okay, now go."

PJ nodded at her sisters to start and they chanted the spell together.

"_Host soul reject the poison's essence_

_Let love of light end this cruel possession."_

Piper and Phoebe could only stand there, staring at PJ, Parker and Peyton in shock.

It was weird for them to see three young girls who looked like them chanting a power of three spell.

Phoebe wondered idly if that was what she, Piper and Prue would have been like if Grams hadn't bound their powers.

PJ looked the same, but she looked happier than they'd ever seen her. It was her sisters. They were making the seventeen year old smile more than she had since their deaths. She had a beautiful smile - Phoebe's smile. The seventeen year old time traveler looked just like Phoebe had when she was in high school.

The girl who looked to be a year or two younger than PJ was at that awkward age when no one ever really looked good. Her brown hair was wavy and she had green eyes and a smattering of freckles on her nose. She had braces. She was thin – too thin – and gangly. Her facial features were a mixture of Piper's and Prue's.

It looked like the youngest girl hadn't even bothered to brush her unruly brown hair. Her eyes were big and brown. She had Phoebe's coloring, Paige's face shape, and Prue's build.

As the girls said the final word of the dispossession spell in unison, blue smoke rose out of the younger Paige's body and into the bottle in Chris's hand.

Piper and Phoebe rushed over to the now dispossessed Paige.

Paige stood back and watched sadly as the sisters that had died years ago hugged her younger self. God, she missed her sisters.

"Now the vanquishing spell," Chris said to his cousins. He sounded bossy, kind of how he sounded when he was sending Piper, Phoebe and Paige after a demon they didn't really want to go after.

PJ hurried over to the Book of Shadows, still holding her younger sisters' hands. The pages flipped to the alchemist vanquishing spell and they read it together.

"_Let flesh be flesh and bone be bone_

_The alchemist shall transform none_

_Cruel scientist of evil borne_

_With these words face the fire's scorn."_

Blue sparks exploded from the bottle like a bottle rocket on the fourth of July.

"Cool." Parker grinned, showing her braces.

"I was possessed by a demon. How is that cool?" The older Paige said, staring at the fourteen year old.

Parker giggled. "No, not that part."

"The part where we vanquished the demon," PJ said, putting an arm around her sister.

"Right," Parker said.

The recently dispossessed Paige walked over to her future self. "I like our hair that color."

Piper rolled her eyes. "Paige, focus! Paige – the one from the future – maybe you can answer a few questions for us. First thing's first. Wyatt's not evil in the future, is he?"

The older Paige frowned and glanced back at Chris and PJ. "Can I talk to my-"

"You want to talk to us?" Chris cut his aunt off quickly - before she could say nephew and niece.

"No!" Piper said. "We're _all_ gonna talk. Now."

"Okay. Parker and Peyton, go down to the kitchen. I'm sure there are cookies or something down there." The older Paige didn't want her young nieces to know too much about the future. From what little PJ had told her, the future sounded pretty grim.

"I'll go with them." PJ started walking off in the same direction as her sisters, but the older Paige grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Stay," Paige ordered.

PJ knew better than to argue with her aunt when she used that tone. She turned around to face Paige slowly.

"You and Chris came back to change the future and I'm all for changing it, but I need to know what happened," Paige said.

"I told you-"

"You told me that you couldn't tell me what the evil was," Paige reminded her niece, remembering exactly what PJ had told her.

"It's Wyatt," Chris said.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Paige asked her niece.

"I didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't believe me," PJ said dully.

"You have to believe us," Chris said desperately.

"I do," Paige said, surprising everyone in the room.

Paige hadn't wanted to say anything until she had proof, but she thought Wyatt was evil and had for a while now. He'd been with her kids when they were killed – all three of them. She had always thought it was a little weird that her powerful twice-blessed nephew couldn't protect them. And Phoebe told Paige that she sensed evil from Wyatt shortly before her death.

"You do?" PJ said.

"Okay, let me get this straight. You're from the future and you don't know if Wyatt is evil. You had to ask them what the evil was so Wyatt can't be evil in the year you're from. How do we know they're not making it all up? For all we know, _they're_ the ones that are evil. Not my son," Piper said to the Paige from the future, glaring at Chris and PJ.

Piper had just accused the founder of the resistance against Lord Wyatt of being evil.

No one said anything for a minute. With each second that passed in silence, the tension in the room built. Chris and PJ weren't just a random future boy and future girl anymore. They were family. Chris was someone's son and PJ was someone's daughter. They should be loved and protected. Chris was trying to hide how hurt he was and PJ's lips were pressed together into an angry line.

It was the Paige from the future who finally broke the silence. She was mad at her past self and her sisters - especially Piper. They should have taken one look at the time travelers and known Chris and PJ were family. They had to know now. They knew and Piper wasn't even giving Chris and PJ a chance.

"Uh, Chris is your son," Paige said.


	12. Chapter Eleven: You Can't Fight Destiny

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews. Happy New Year.**

**Chapter Eleven: You Can't Fight Destiny **

Had Paige really just said what Piper thought she said?

_Chris is your son._

No.

"No," Piper said, a frown on her face. Her mouth was dry. She didn't understand how the twenty-two year old time traveler could possibly be her son.

He couldn't be her son. It wasn't physically possible.

Piper wasn't pregnant. Piper and Leo were separated – and not just in the traditional sense of the word. Leo was up there. They weren't going to _get_ pregnant anytime soon and Chris would have to be conceived soon if he was twenty-two.

Christopher Perry was part white-lighter, part witch. There was only one Charmed One who fit that description…Paige.

Piper thought Paige was Chris's mother. Not her. _Paige_.

Chris flinched even though he had said the same thing at the exact same time. _No_. His voice had been quiet – so quiet they didn't even hear him. His mother's had not.

Unlike the weak protest that had died on the twenty-two year old's lips as his favorite aunt revealed the secret he'd carefully guarded, Piper was denying her son.

The older Paige looked at Piper incredulously. "_No?_ He's your son, Piper. I was there when he was born."

_He's your son._

Chris didn't even act like he liked Piper - much less love her like a child should love his mother.

Their white-lighter didn't want anything to do with her outside of demon hunting. Even then, he acted annoyed and frustrated with her.

What could she have done in the future that was so bad?

Oh, she knew she hadn't been the most welcoming person in the world when the twenty-two year old time traveler arrived. With everyone that had shown up in their lives only to hurt them, they had to be careful whom they let in. If Chris was really a Halliwell, he would understand that.

"How? How could that happen?" Piper said.

"When two people-" the younger Paige began with her usual sarcasm.

"I know _that_." Piper was definitely not amused. "I mean, I'm not pregnant and Leo and I aren't together."

"What?" The older Paige knit her brow.

"I said Leo and I aren't together," Piper repeated impatiently – before she realized that Paige's question was directed to Chris. Why would Paige ask Chris about that? Unless she and Leo were still together in the future and Chris changed that…

"Leo had to become an elder to make room for me as their white-lighter," Chris said, confirming Piper's theory.

"You split them up," Phoebe said in an accusatory tone. "Your parents were happy until you split them up."

"You did _what_?" The older Paige said to Chris, raising her voice slightly.

Great. Now both of his aunts were upset. Phoebe was upset that the twenty-two year old time traveler had caused her sister and brother-in-law unnecessary heartache and pain – both of which Phoebe had felt firsthand thanks to her new power of empathy – and Paige didn't want her nephew to cease to exist.

Chris glanced at Paige. "I know, I know. I was so focused on saving Wyatt, I didn't think about me."

"Well, now he's not the only one of my nephews that needs to be saved," the older Paige muttered unhappily.

"How long do Leo and I have to, uh, get back together exactly?" Piper looked uncomfortable. She didn't really want to discuss this with two time travelers who were apparently her son and niece, but she also didn't want her son to never be born – even if it was his own damn fault that she and his father weren't together anymore.

"His birthday is October 23rd," the older Paige supplied. "Does that mean you believe me now?"

Piper looked at Chris like she was seeing him for the first time. "It's not that I didn't believe you, Paige. I just can't believe Chris kept this secret from us."

"Speaking of secrets, is PJ my daughter or yours?" Phoebe spoke up.

Before the older Paige could answer her, they heard an ear-piercing scream coming from downstairs. Piper cringed.

"Peyton!" PJ's heart glowed pink and she disappeared from the attic.

"What was that?" Phoebe said slowly.

"She beamed," the older Paige told her, as if it were an everyday occurrence.

Just as suddenly as PJ had disappeared, Parker and Peyton appeared in a pink glow.

"What happened?" Chris asked his cousins anxiously.

"There's a man in the conservatory. He said he was going to take us. I don't want to go with him," Peyton said, looking at the older Paige, something that didn't go unnoticed by the younger Paige and Phoebe, who didn't know which of them was the girls' mother.

"What man?" Phoebe asked.

"He said he was an angel of destiny," Parker said, a frown on her face.

"What does he want?" Piper said in an annoyed tone. This was not a good time for a visit from the angel of destiny.

"We don't know," Parker replied.

The older Paige frowned. "Is PJ still down there with him?"

"He said he posed no threat," Parker said dubiously.

"Well, that makes it okay," the older Paige said sarcastically.

"It does?" Peyton sounded surprised.

"I think she's being sarcastic," Parker told her baby sister.

The younger Paige laughed. Her older self _was_ being sarcastic.

Leo orbed in. Finally. "What happened?" He noticed Parker and Peyton. "And who are they?"

"They are my nieces. They're from the future," Piper said.

"That explains it," Leo muttered.

"Explains what?" Piper demanded.

"We felt an upset to the balance between good and evil. A new power that's just as strong as the power of three," Leo said, the _we_ being the elders.

"That's because they reconstitute the Charmed Ones in the future. Well, them and PJ," Phoebe said.

Leo frowned. "Wait, PJ's family?"

"Yes, and so is-" the older Paige began.

"Paige," Piper cut her sister off quickly.

But it was too late. There was a flicker of realization in Leo's eyes.

"Chris," Leo said quietly, cutting his eyes to the twenty-two year old time traveler.

"Yeah. He's-" Phoebe began, unable to help herself.

"Paige's son," Chris cut his aunt off, looking at the sisters pleadingly. He didn't want to deal with his issues with his mother and he _really_ didn't want to deal with his issues with Leo. Not now. Not ever.

Paige – both of them - looked at the twenty-two year old time traveler incredulously.

Piper stared at Chris, not knowing what to say. Her son just said that her sister was his mother. He didn't just dislike her. He hated her.

Parker looked at her cousin like he'd just announced that aliens exist.

Peyton frowned in confusion. Chris wasn't Paige's son.

Leo nodded, as if it was obvious. "I figured. He's part white-lighter, part witch."

Meanwhile, downstairs PJ was facing off against the angel of destiny.

"I have to take them," he said.

"If you think I'm gonna let you take them-"

"You have no choice," the angel of destiny cut her off. His voice was eerily calm.

"Like hell I don't." The seventeen year old threw her right hand forward with enough force that the angel of destiny should have been thrown into the wall, but her power didn't work.

"I am beyond your powers," the angel of destiny told her, clearly unimpressed with the angry teenager. "Stop fighting me. You can't fight destiny. We angels don't normally intervene. This is quite an extraordinary situation. You have changed destiny."

"Yeah, that was kind of the point," PJ said angrily. She lost steam as the full weight of his words hit her. She had changed destiny. She had changed the future. Did that mean she saved Paige from dying? "I have?"

"Not the way you were supposed to change it, Prudence," the angel of destiny said, not liking her tone, soft with hope that she'd saved her aunt.

"How am I supposed to change it?" PJ demanded. The angel of destiny was frustrating.

"Your destiny is tied to your cousin's. It is Christopher's destiny to save his brother from becoming evil. Some of us do not think he will achieve it. If he should fail, it is your destiny to kill Wyatt." The angel of destiny watched the teenager closely, like he was sizing her up to see if she was up to the task.

PJ frowned, recalling the promise Chris made her on Piper's birthday. "I don't understand. Chris said he'd stop Wyatt if we couldn't save him."

Without her sisters, PJ wasn't the oldest sister of the Charmed Ones. She was just an ordinary witch. Chris was just as strong as her - if not stronger.

"None of us think he will kill his own brother," the angel of destiny said simply.

Chris wouldn't kill his brother. _She_ would have to kill her cousin.

Wyatt was no different than a demon to her. That's all he had been since the moment he killed her sisters. She'd vanquished demons before. She should be able to kill her cousin. So why did she feel sick to her stomach?

PJ took a moment to process her destiny. "What does this have to do with Paige? Saving her doesn't change what I have to do."

"I don't think you grasp the consequences of time travel. Perhaps what happened in the future changed you. Your aunt's death changed you. It was a pivotal point in your life. It changed your future," the angel of destiny said, trying to impress upon the teen witch the grave consequences of her actions.

"Paige would never have let any of this happen," PJ said.

PJ was operating under the assumption that her future would have been better if her aunt had lived. She was incorrect in that assumption.

The angel of destiny gave the teenager a long look and nodded to himself. If she knew what happened in the alternate future where her aunt lived, she would stop fighting destiny.

"Actually, had she lived, you would have turned evil and so then would your two sisters," he told her.

"No. I don't believe you," PJ said heatedly.

"No? Her living wouldn't have affected Wyatt offering you and your two sisters an opportunity to join him. It only affected your decision," the angel of destiny said calmly.

"No." But PJ didn't sound as convinced as she had only seconds before. Her heart was racing.

"Think about it. Your aunt's spell bound your power to beam. You were angry. You had a forbidden romance with Aiden," the angel of destiny reminded her. "Wyatt offered you a chance to have more power than you ever dreamed of and to be with Aiden. Are you sure you wouldn't have joined him?"

PJ closed her eyes. It had only been an hour ago that she'd come face to face with her sixteen year old self. She was so angry. She didn't really appreciate everything her aunt did for her and her sisters until Paige was gone. She wanted to say she would never join Wyatt, but the truth was that she didn't know what she would have done.

"I don't know," PJ admitted.

"I do," the angel of destiny said simply. "I'm sorry, but I have to take them. Your sisters and your aunt. They will have no memory of this."

The seventeen year old time traveler had stopped her sixteen year old self from sneaking out, stopped her aunt from casting the anti-beaming spell, and warned them both about the attack. She _had_ saved her aunt.

Paige would live and the alternate future where the next generation of the Charmed Ones were evil would become a harsh reality.

That was why the angel of destiny had interfered. He would take Paige, Parker and Peyton back to just before the seventeen year old's arrival and they wouldn't remember anything. Everything would happen exactly as it was supposed to.

"The same thing will happen. Paige will die. My sisters will die," PJ said helplessly, her expression pained.

The angel of destiny nodded. "That's what is supposed to happen."

"What can I do to save them? Tell me what to do and I'll do it," PJ said desperately.

"There is really nothing you could have done then. What you can do is stop Wyatt now. If you do that, they will be alive in the changed future," the angel of destiny told her.

"Can I – can I at least say goodbye?" PJ asked, her voice cracking.

The seventeen year old time traveler had been so sure she could save Paige. She thought that was why her dad's ring took her back to that night. Now she felt like she was losing her aunt all over again.

And she didn't even want to think about losing her sisters again. She didn't think she could stand it.


	13. Chapter Twelve: Saying Goodbye

**A/N: Thank you for your reviews. I know many of you didn't love the last chapter. I had always planned for the angel of destiny to appear. I wanted PJ to know that in the alternate future where Paige lived, she would have turned evil. There are other ways I could have done this that might have been better judging by the feedback. At the end of this chapter, please let me know if you like the direction this story is going in or not. If not, I have other story ideas and I don't want to continue writing a story that many of you aren't enjoying anymore.**

**I responded to some of your reviews and questions at the end. **

**Chapter Twelve: Saying Goodbye **

Two things happened in quick succession. Leo froze and then the angel of destiny appeared in the attic.

It was the same angel that had offered the sisters a chance to relinquish their powers as a reward for vanquishing the source of all evil…aka Cole. He looked exactly the same, but there was no warmth to his demeanor this time. He was not there to offer them a reward. He was there because PJ had changed destiny in a way that the angels didn't want to see it changed.

They didn't want the next generation of Charmed Ones to join the twice-blessed son of a Charmed One and a white-lighter. If Paige lived, PJ would accept Wyatt's offer. The oldest sister turning evil would be enough to turn the other two sisters as well. There would be too much power on the side of evil.

Peyton eyed the angel of destiny warily and moved closer to the older Paige.

"Where's my sister?" Parker asked.

"Here. I'm here," PJ said as she beamed in.

"Not to be rude, but why are you here?" Piper said bluntly to the angel of destiny.

"I have to take them," the angel of destiny said, looking at the older Paige, Parker and Peyton.

"Why now? Chris and PJ have been here for months. They haven't even been here for a day," Phoebe pointed out.

The angel of destiny froze Paige, Parker and Peyton before he answered Phoebe. "PJ changed destiny today and not the way she was supposed to change it. What she did was premature and rash. It is not just your family's destinies that she changed. Other people's destinies are tied to yours. There is a great deal at stake here. We angels of destiny had no choice but to interfere."

"PJ. What did you do?" Chris muttered to his cousin through gritted teeth.

"I tried to keep them from dying," PJ said, her eyes going to Paige even though she didn't mention her aunt by name.

PJ had thought that saving Paige would save her sisters. They died the night they vanquished the demon that killed Paige. At least according to Wyatt it was the demon that killed her. She didn't know if that was true, or if it was a lie to get them where he wanted them. She thought she could save all of them.

"Wait, _them_? Am I dead in the future?" The younger Paige said, her eyes wide, a horrified look on her face.

Piper glanced at Paige worriedly and Phoebe put a comforting arm around her baby sister.

"We can't tell you." Chris ignored the glare on his mother's face and the annoyed look on Phoebe's face, used to their constant state of irritation with him.

"You mean you won't tell us," Piper muttered, frustration creeping into her voice.

"I told you we can't tell you, okay? And unlike some people, I actually care about not changing the future too much," Chris said with a pointed look at his younger cousin. "I just- I can't believe you did that."

Chris knew PJ wanted to save their family. He did, too. That was the whole reason he was there.

The twenty-two year old time traveler had gone back in time to save Wyatt with a well thought out plan. He'd considered every single angle. Everything he had done was carefully calculated. He liked to be in control. Other people screwed things up. If he wanted this done right, he had to do it himself.

His younger cousin didn't have a plan. She just saw an opportunity and took it. It was classic PJ. She had always been reckless.

"What, tried to save them?" The seventeen year old time traveler said defensively.

"It's the way you did it," the angel of destiny said. "You need to think before you act. You didn't stop to consider the consequences of your actions. In this case, the consequences are far-reaching and completely disastrous. I hope you learned your lesson."

"I'm not stupid. I know I made a bad choice." PJ felt bad enough already. She didn't need some angel of destiny making her feel worse.

PJ wouldn't apologize for trying to save Paige. That wasn't the reason she felt bad. She felt bad because saving Paige meant her sixteen year old self would turn evil. It was her fault that Paige was destined to die.

What kind of person would choose power and a boy over good and her family? No, not even a boy – a warlock. Yeah, she liked power. And she loved Aiden – even now.

PJ felt dirty, contaminated, like she shouldn't breathe the same air as her mom or her aunts, who had died fighting evil. Evil like her. There was evil in her. There had to be for her to join Wyatt in any future.

The seventeen year old didn't know exactly how many people Wyatt had killed, but it had been a lot. She had lived underground among the other members of the resistance, who had lost their homes and families because of her cousin. She had lost friends in battle. They were good people. To think that she could have been one of the people they were fighting against…

The angel of destiny sighed wearily. The child was difficult. "Very well. You asked to say goodbye, which I'll grant." He unfroze Paige, Parker, and Peyton and looked away, giving them some semblance of privacy.

PJ hugged Parker.

"I love you," she said, her voice overcome with emotion.

The fourteen year old frowned slightly, not sure why her sister was acting like they'd never see each other again. She didn't know that this was the first time her older sister had seen them in over a year, or that they were dead in PJ's future.

"I love you, too," she said uncertainly.

Parker couldn't see PJ's face. If she had, she would have known something was wrong. PJ looked sad, the pain clear in her big brown eyes.

PJ finally let go of Parker. She hugged Peyton tightly.

"Can't breathe," the ten year old said, breaking free from her sister's arms.

PJ smiled in spite of herself and the situation. She gently smoothed her baby sister's wayward hair and kissed her temple. "I love you."

They were her younger sisters. They would be dead within a week.

"Don't I get a hug?" The older Paige asked.

PJ hesitated. Paige should hate her, but her aunt didn't know that. The teen witch felt a surge of guilt. Her feet felt heavy as she moved toward her aunt to hug her.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," PJ said softly into the older Paige's shoulder.

The seventeen year old was trying to stay strong, but she couldn't hold back her tears anymore. She let out a choked sob, tears streaming down her face.

"Hey," Paige said, pulling back a little to look at her niece. "Whatever you did, it can't be that bad."

"It's worse," PJ muttered miserably, wiping her tears away with her hand. "I'm a horrible person."

"No, you're not." Paige frowned, taken aback.

The seventeen year old PJ was so different from the sixteen year old PJ.

The sixteen year old was defensive – even when she was clearly in the wrong. She drank, smoked, and ditched class. She never apologized. She tried to turn it around. Paige didn't understand. Paige was overreacting.

The seventeen year old was apologizing profusely – for what Paige didn't know. It didn't even matter. PJ was still her niece.

PJ took a deep breath, trying to stop crying. "Yes. I am."

"Well, I don't think so." Paige said slowly, her tone light, almost teasing. "I kind of like you."

Sometimes it was easier to tease her niece out of a mood than to talk about it rationally. Hormonal teenagers weren't always the most rational. This time PJ didn't even crack a smile.

"You would hate me if you knew," PJ mumbled despondently.

Paige frowned, hating seeing her niece this upset. "Knew what?"

PJ shook her head. "I can't tell you."

The angel of destiny's harsh features softened seeing the teen witch's regret. Her tears were real, as was her sorrow and remorse. He decided to end this now. Paige wouldn't remember it and it was only making it harder for PJ.

"I'm sorry," he said. "We have to go now."

Piper's mouth was open, ready to say something to stop him from leaving with the older Paige, the first person to give them some answers about the future. She couldn't even get a word in before the angel of destiny disappeared with the older Paige, Parker and Peyton.

PJ took one look at Paige and knew she had to get out of there.

Paige was frowning like the older Paige had been, feeling like she should take over where her future self had left off. PJ didn't think she could take kind words from this Paige when she knew what was happening to her Aunt Paige in the future because of her.

PJ beamed to the beach. It was late and the beach was closed.

The teenager was still wearing the work out top and thin yoga pants she'd borrowed from Phoebe. The cold night air cut right through her. She dropped to her knees in the sand, wrapping her arms around herself. She was crying again – hard. Her body was shaking with sobs.

"Where's she going?" Piper said in a disapproving tone.

"I think she wants to be alone." Chris knew his cousin was at the beach. He went to the Golden Gate Bridge to think and she went to the beach.

"But she's not alone. She has us now," Phoebe said.

"Yeah. Maybe she needs us after what just happened," Paige said. She couldn't get the image of the seventeen year old time traveler clinging to her future self like her life depended on it out of her head. Little did Paige know, it was her own life that was on the line.

"That was hard on her, okay? I don't think she was ready to see them. She feels responsible for their deaths," Chris said.

"I thought you said Wyatt killed them," Piper said, an edge to her voice. She wanted to know who was really to blame – her son, her future son, or her niece.

Chris sighed. "He did."

"Then why does PJ feel responsible?" Piper sounded exasperated.

"It was a trap. PJ trusted him and she shouldn't have. He cast an anti-beaming spell. They wouldn't join him so he killed them and she couldn't protect them," Chris said.

"Why didn't he kill PJ? Did she join him?" Phoebe asked, looking directly at Chris.

"What? No," Chris said, as if the very idea was incredibly stupid.

"Then why didn't he kill her?" Phoebe asked.

"He tried," Chris said vaguely, avoiding answering the question.

And Wyatt _had_ tried – and not just the night he killed Parker and Peyton.

"Why should we believe you after all the lies? You lied about who you were, why you were here," Leo spoke up, glancing at the sisters to see if they were buying this, not sure what to believe himself. "Who knows what else he's lying about?"

"I knew _you_ wouldn't believe me." None of them missed the bitterness in Chris's voice.

"You haven't given us a reason to trust you," Leo said.

"How about because I'm family?" Chris said, his voice rising slightly in frustration.

"Yes, but, Chris, so is Wyatt. He's my son," Leo pointed out.

In his defense, Leo had no idea that Chris wasn't his nephew. Chris was his son, too.

Phoebe and Paige exchanged a look.

Piper winced, shaking her head ever so slightly. "Leo…"

"Now you've done a lot of good since you've been here and I'm not discounting that," Leo said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "It's your methods that make it hard for us to trust you. Just be straight with us."

"I am," Chris said.

Paige made a sound that was half-snort, half-snicker. She didn't know how her nephew/fake son could say that with a straight face.

Piper shot her son a look, her eyebrows raised, as if to ask if he was serious, and her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"Wyatt is evil in the future. He's killed people. He killed Parker and Peyton," Chris said.

"Okay, one of you is evil. You and Wyatt are on different sides in the future. You can't both be good," Leo said, not sure that Wyatt was the evil one.

"What, so you're saying I'm the one that's evil? Well, at least you and Piper agree on that," Chris said, his mother's words still haunting him. _How do we know they're not making it all up? For all we know, they're the ones that are evil. Not my son._ Of course the son whom Piper was referring to at the time was Wyatt.

Piper let out a breath, trying to be patient with her son. Patience was not a virtue she possessed. "I don't know if you are evil," she said carefully. "That's the whole point."

Chris looked at Paige. "Do you think I'm evil?"

Paige shook her head. "No."

Chris held her gaze for a few seconds and nodded. It was a silent thank you, an acknowledgement of how much it meant to him. At least one of the sisters believed him even if his own mother didn't.

The twenty-two year old time traveler orbed away in final surrender, knowing there was nothing he could do or say to make Piper and Leo believe him.

* * *

**Highlander348: Thank you for your reviews. I am planning on introducing Henry in the next chapter.**

**ObsessedwReading: Thank you for your continued reviews. As you probably figured out from this chapter, Chris, Leo, and the Charmed Ones will remember everything. It's just like in Forever Charmed where Chris had Coop take Grams and their mom back so they wouldn't remember (if that makes sense).**

**BekaRoo: Thank you for your review.**

**CharmedOpal: Thank you for your continued reviews.**

**Midia: I don't like the angel of destiny either. He sees two different ways to change the future. One is where Chris stops Wyatt from turning. Chris is running out of time to do that though. The other is where PJ kills Wyatt as a baby. If neither of those things happen, Wyatt will still be evil in the future. He also saw the future where Paige lived and PJ joined Wyatt. He is really the angel of destiny, but he may or may not be working with Gideon. **

**Kindleflame5: First of all, I love that you had examples. I try to keep the characters in character and I look at examples of what they did or said in similar situations on the show as I'm writing. Your examples were really helpful. I may not have done a good job keeping the characters in character and the events realistic in the last chapter. And I didn't know that Prue wasn't meant to die. **

**Second of all, since you took the time to write a long review and give examples, I wanted to at least respond with some of my thoughts as I wrote the last chapter. **

**I agree that the future is not set in stone. It can change based on the choices people make. I was trying to show that PJ could change the future and had in fact stopped Paige from dying, but in the changed future, PJ would turn evil. The angels of destiny interfered because they didn't want that future to come to fruition. If the twice-blessed son and the next generation of Charmed Ones were evil, evil would be too powerful. I don't know how well that came across – probably not very well based on some of the reviews. **

**There have been times where they could change the future and save someone from dying and times when they couldn't. They saved Piper in All Hell Breaks Loose, but then Prue died. Again, I haven't read the comics so I didn't know that Prue didn't really die. In A Paige From the Past, Paige tried to save her parents, but they died anyway. Leo said it was their destiny. Phoebe wanted to save their mom in That Seventies Episode, but both Grams and their mom said they couldn't change destiny. And then, of course, there are several examples where they _were_ able to change destiny, many of which you came up with.**

**People weren't supposed to like the angel of destiny the way he was written. Personally, I don't like the angels of destiny, death, or the elders. I used death's interaction with Prue in Death Takes a Halliwell and the angel of destiny's appearance in Witch Way Now as I was writing him. The angel of destiny did take Leo in Forever Charmed, but then she brought him back.**


End file.
